“‘Assurement non,’ said the fellow with a laugh, that was the signal for all the others to join in it.  ‘Is the table d’hote over?’ said I, regardless of the mirth around me.  ‘Monsieur is just in time,’ said the waiter, who happened to pass with a soup-tureen in his hand.  ’Have the goodness to step this way.’  I had barely time to remark the close resemblance of the waiter to the fellow who presented me with my brandy and cigar in the morning, when he ushered me into a large room with about forty persons sitting at a long table, evidently waiting with impatience for the ‘Potage’ to begin their dinner.  Whether it was they enjoyed the joke of having neglected to call me, or that they were laughing at my travelling costume, I cannot say, but the moment I came in, I could perceive a general titter run through the assembly.  ’Not too late, after all, gentlemen,’ said I, marching gravely up the table.

“‘Monsieur is in excellent time,’ said the host, making room for me beside his chair.  Notwithstanding the incumbrance of my weighty habiliments, I proceeded to do ample justice to the viands before me, apologizing laughingly to the host, by pleading a traveller’s appetite.

“‘Then you have perhaps come far this morning,’ said a gentleman opposite.

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I have been on the road since four o’clock.’

“‘And how are the roads?’ said another.  ‘Very bad,’ said I, ’the first few stages from Lyons, afterwards much better.’  This was said at a venture, as I began to be ashamed of being always asleep before my fellow-travellers.  They did not seem, however, to understand me perfectly; and one old fellow putting down his spectacles from his forehead, leaned over and said:  ’And where, may I ask, has Monsieur come from this morning?’

“‘From Lyons,’ said I, with the proud air of a man who has done a stout feat, and is not ashamed of the exploit.

“‘From Lyons!’ said one.  ‘From Lyons!’ cried another.  ‘From Lyons!’ repeated a third.

“‘Yes,’ said I; ’what the devil is so strange in it; travelling is so quick now-a-days, one thinks nothing of twenty leagues before dinner.’

“The infernal shout of laughing that followed my explanation is still in my ears; from one end of the table to the other there was one continued ha, ha, ha—­from the greasy host to the little hunchbacked waiter, they were all grinning away.

“‘And how did Monsieur travel?’ said the old gentleman, who seemed to carry on the prosecution against me.

“‘By the diligence, the “Aigle noir,"’ said I, giving the name with some pride, that I was not altogether ignorant of the conveyance.

“‘The you should certainly not complain of the roads,’ said the host chuckling; ’for the only journey that diligence has made this day has been from the street-door to the inn-yard; for as they found when the luggage was nearly packed that the axle was almost broken through, they wheeled it round to the court, and prepared another for the travellers.’