country; but it grows astonishing claret. When I was about your age
it grew a wine yet more astonishing."

"Hallo!" Master Dick paused in the act of lighting his pipe and
dropped the match hurriedly as the flame scorched his fingers.

"It was grown on a hill just outside the town--the Mont-Bazillac. I
once drank a bottle of it."

"Lord! You too? . . . _Do_ tell me what happened!"

"Never," I responded firmly. "The Mont-Bazillac is extinct, swept
out of existence by the phylloxera when you were a babe in arms.
_Infandum jubes renovare--_ no one any longer can tell you what that
wine was. They made it of the ripe grape. It had the raisin flavour
with something--no more than a hint--of Madeira in it: the leathery
tang--how to describe it?"

"You need not try, when I have two bottles of it at home, at this
moment!"

"When I tell you--" I began.

"Oh, but wait till you've heard the story!" he interrupted. "As I
was saying, we came to Bergerac and put up for the night at the
_Couronne d'Or_--first-class cooking. Besides ourselves there were
three French bagmen at the _table d'hote_. The usual sort. Jinks,
who talks worse French than I do (if that's possible), and doesn't
mind, got on terms with them at once. . . . For my part I can always
hit it off with a commercial--it's the sort of mind that appeals to