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WITH COTTAGERS IN MOUNTAINS 167
all nodded gloomily and hopefully. It must soon
come! ‘Then his face brightens.
“It was an expensive trip, I tell you,” he says, as he
looks about with a childlike sense of his own impor-
tance. “It cost me more than five thousand francs,
and it only lasted one week, and I did not touch a bed
on a single night. I can still feel it in my bones.” And
he yawns immoderately like a boastful young school
boy.
“Five thousand francs!” they repeat to each other,
marveling as he corroborates his previous statement
with a modest smile and nod. “I have never seen so
much money at once!” And they laugh and shake
their heads at such extravagance.
The repast is over. Don Louis pours out a glass of
wine and hands it to one of the men with a single slice
of bacon sausage. The man drinks a little out of the
glass, whereupon it is filled again and passed to the
next man with a new slice of sausage. He also takes a
little sip and it is again filled and so on all around the
table, until it comes back to Don Louis, who drains his
cup to the dregs without turning an eyelid. I pull my-
self together and perform the same heroic deed. But
when my glass returns to me with its very unappetizing
contents, my nearest neighbor, with a most tactful con-
sideration, passes the vessel not to me but to my wife.
She sends me an imploring glance; but the success of
our trip depends entirely on whether she will prove
herself equal to the situation. I nod inexorably. She
empties the vessel and hastily manufactures a pretext
for leaving the room.
Nothing can be more justified than the pride with
which the cottagers took us into the hills and showed
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