The cart was then remounted on its wheels, and the Knights, by this time hungry and thirsty, returned to Mere Cognette's, where they were soon seated round the table in the low room, laughing at the grimaces Fario would make when he came after his barrow in the morning.
The Knights, naturally, did not play such capers every night.

The genius of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year.

In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved.

But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, they always met during the day, enjoying together the legitimate pleasures of hunting, or the autumn vintages and the winter skating.

Among this assemblage of twenty youths, all of them at war with the social somnolence of the place, there are some who were more closely allied than others to Max, and who made him their idol.