Pennell, Joseph; Pennell, Joseph: Our sentimental journey through France and Italy (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1893)

[ 43 ]
one glass of brandy. Then he gave us a dance
and a song.
And then there came trooping into the room
huntsmen with dogs and guns, and servants bear-
ing long poles strung with rabbits, and three
ladies in silks and gold chains and ribbons, and
a small boy. The huntsmen were given cognac
and absinthe; the ladies were led away through a
narrow passage, but they returned in a minute,
with pitchers which they themselves filled from a
barrel near the kitchen-door.
These were people of quality, it was plain. They
had come in a carriage, and a private dressing-
room was found for them. But for us, who had
arrived on a machine we worked ourselves, a basin
was set in the fireplace, where we too made a toilet
as best we could.—At seven the landlady, with
upraised hands, rushed from the kitchen to say
that-
“ Mon Dieu ! the mutton cutlets Monsieur and
Madame ordered have gone like a dream. What
is to be done ? ”
—What, indeed ? And all the time we had
supposed her preparations were for us.
A little later, when dinner still seemed a remote
possibility, in searching for our bag which had
been carried off, I came by chance upon a dining-

room