To his son and heir--the identical boy who had brought the ring of bread up the mountain to the chalet where we lunched.

I gave something under two-pence, for guiding me across two doubtful fields into a beaten track, and he expressed himself as even more content than the maire.

They both told me that it was impossible to miss the way; but I imagine that I achieved that impossibility, as I had to walk through two streams in the deepening twilight, and the prevailing fear of water in that region is very considerable.
The _auberge_ at Thorens to which the maire had recommended me, as being the best, and kept by a personal friend of his, bore the sign _a la Parfaite Union_.

The entry was by the kitchen, and through the steam and odour of onions, illuminated by one doubtful oil-lamp, I saw the guest-room filled with people in Sunday dress, while two fiddles played each its own tune in its own time.

Nothing but the potent name of M.the Maire of Aviernoz gained me even a hearing; and, for a bed, I was obliged to stretch my intimacy with that exalted personage to the very furthest bounds of truth.