For my part, when I was turned out of the Stag, or the Hind, or whatever it was, I would have set the temple of Diana on fire, if it had been handy.  There was no crime complete enough to express my disapproval of human institutions.  As for the Cigarette, I never knew a man so altered.  ’We have been taken for pedlars again,’ said he.  ’Good God, what it must be to be a pedlar in reality!’ He particularised a complaint for every joint in the landlady’s body.  Timon was a philanthropist alongside of him.  And then, when he was at the top of his maledictory bent, he would suddenly break away and begin whimperingly to commiserate the poor.  ‘I hope to God,’ he said,—­and I trust the prayer was answered,—­ ‘that I shall never be uncivil to a pedlar.’  Was this the imperturbable Cigarette?  This, this was he.  O change beyond report, thought, or belief!

Meantime the heaven wept upon our heads; and the windows grew brighter as the night increased in darkness.  We trudged in and out of La Fere streets; we saw shops, and private houses where people were copiously dining; we saw stables where carters’ nags had plenty of fodder and clean straw; we saw no end of reservists, who were very sorry for themselves this wet night, I doubt not, and yearned for their country homes; but had they not each man his place in La Fere barracks?  And we, what had we?

There seemed to be no other inn in the whole town.  People gave us directions, which we followed as best we could, generally with the effect of bringing us out again upon the scene of our disgrace.  We were very sad people indeed by the time we had gone all over La Fere; and the Cigarette had already made up his mind to lie under a poplar and sup off a loaf of bread.  But right at the other end, the house next the town-gate was full of light and bustle.  ’Bazin, aubergiste, loge a pied,’ was the sign.  ‘A la Croix de Malte.’  There were we received.

The room was full of noisy reservists drinking and smoking; and we were very glad indeed when the drums and bugles began to go about the streets, and one and all had to snatch shakoes and be off for the barracks.

Bazin was a tall man, running to fat:  soft-spoken, with a delicate, gentle face.  We asked him to share our wine; but he excused himself, having pledged reservists all day long.  This was a very different type of the workman-innkeeper from the bawling disputatious fellow at Origny.  He also loved Paris, where he had worked as a decorative painter in his youth.  There were such opportunities for self-instruction there, he said.  And if any one has read Zola’s description of the workman’s marriage-party visiting the Louvre, they would do well to have heard Bazin by way of antidote.  He had delighted in the museums in his youth.  ’One sees there little miracles of work,’ he said; ’that is what makes a good workman; it kindles a spark.’  We asked him how he managed in La Fere.  ‘I am married,’ he said, ’and I have my pretty children.  But frankly, it is no life at all.  From morning to night I pledge a pack of good enough fellows who know nothing.’