“Come and try it, Mongilet, come to the country once just to see.”

“I was there once,” he replied, “twenty years ago, and you will never catch me there again.”

“Tell us about it, Mongilet.”

“If you wish to hear it.  This is how it was: 

“You knew Boivin, the old editorial clerk, whom we called Boileau?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“He was my office chum.  The rascal had a house at Colombes and always invited me to spend Sunday with him.  He would say: 

“’Come along, Maculotte [he called me Maculotte for fun].  You will see what a nice excursion we will take.’

“I let myself be entrapped like an animal, and set out, one morning by the 8 o’clock train.  I arrived at a kind of town, a country town where there is nothing to see, and I at length found my way to an old wooden door with an iron bell, at the end of an alley between two walls.

“I rang, and waited a long time, and at last the door was opened.  What was it that opened it?  I could not tell at the first glance.  A woman or an ape?  The creature was old, ugly, covered with old clothes that looked dirty and wicked.  It had chicken’s feathers in its hair and looked as though it would devour me.

“‘What do you want?’ she said.

“‘Mr. Boivin.’

“‘What do you want of him, of Mr. Boivin?’

“I felt ill at ease on being questioned by this fury.  I stammered:  ‘Why-he expects me.’

“‘Ah, it is you who have come to luncheon?’

“‘Yes,’ I stammered, trembling.

“Then, turning toward the house, she cried in an angry tone: 

“‘Boivin, here is your man!’

“It was my friend’s wife.  Little Boivin appeared immediately on the threshold of a sort of barrack of plaster covered with zinc, that looked like a foot stove.  He wore white duck trousers covered with stains and a dirty Panama hat.

“After shaking my hands warmly, he took me into what he called his garden.  It was at the end of another alleyway enclosed by high walls and was a little square the size of a pocket handkerchief, surrounded by houses that were so high that the sun, could reach it only two or three hours in the day.  Pansies, pinks, wallflowers and a few rose bushes were languishing in this well without air, and hot as an oven from the refraction of heat from the roofs.

“‘I have no trees,’ said Boivin, ‘but the neighbors’ walls take their place.  I have as much shade as in a wood.’

“Then he took hold of a button of my coat and said in a low tone: 

“’You can do me a service.  You saw the wife.  She is not agreeable, eh?  To-day, as I had invited you, she gave me clean clothes; but if I spot them all is lost.  I counted on you to water my plants.’

“I agreed.  I took off my coat, rolled up my sleeves, and began to work the handle of a kind of pump that wheezed, puffed and rattled like a consumptive as it emitted a thread of water like a Wallace drinking fountain.  It took me ten minutes to water it and I was in a bath of perspiration.  Boivin directed me: