_cabaret_. This was a man of thirty or thirty-five, with strong features
and the frame of a Hercules. An expression of frankness and gayety
overspread his sunburnt face. Cottonade pantaloons, stuffed into a pair of
dirty boots, and a _vareuse_ of the same stuff made up his dress. His
vareuse, unbuttoned, showed his breast, brown and hairy; and a horrid cap
with long hair covered, without concealing, a mass of red locks that a
comb had never gone through. A long whip, the stock of which he held in
his hand, was coiled about his left arm. He advanced to the counter and
asked for a glass of brandy. He was a drayman named John Gordon--an
Irishman.

But, strange, John Gordon, glass in hand, did not drink; Carpentier, with
his fingers round the neck of the bottle, failed to pour his cider; and my
father himself, his eyes attracted to another part of the room, forgot his
wine. Every one was looking at an individual gesticulating and haranguing
in the middle of the place, to the great amusement of all. My father
recognized him at first sight. He was an Italian about the age of Gordon;
short, thick-set, powerful, swarthy, with the neck of a bull and hair as
black as ebony. He was telling rapidly, with strong gestures, in an almost
incomprehensible mixture of Spanish, English, French, and Italian, the
story of a hunting party that he had made up five years before. This was
Mario Carlo. A Neapolitan by birth, he had for several years worked as a
blacksmith on the plantation of one of our neighbors, M. Alphonse Perret.
Often papa had heard him tell of this hunt, for nothing could be more
amusing than to listen to Carlo. Six young men, with Carlo as sailor and
cook, had gone on a two-months' expedition into the country of the
Attakapas.

"Yes," said the Italian, in conclusion, "game never failed us; deer,
turkeys, ducks, snipe, two or three bears a week. But the sublimest thing