"How fortunate! I was just sitting down to table and I have an excellent
trout."

Five minutes later I was sitting opposite him at breakfast. I said:

"Are you a bachelor?"

"Yes, indeed."

"And do you like it here?"

"Time does not hang heavy; I am busy. I have patients and friends. I eat
well, have good health, enjoy laughing and shooting. I get along."

"Is not life very monotonous in this little town?"

"No, my dear boy, not when one knows how to fill in the time. A little
town, in fact, is like a large one. The incidents and amusements are less
varied, but one makes more of them; one has fewer acquaintances, but one
meets them more frequently. When you know all the windows in a street,
each one of them interests you and puzzles you more than a whole street
in Paris.

"A little town is very amusing, you know, very amusing, very amusing.
Why, take Gisors. I know it at the tips of my fingers, from its beginning
up to the present time. You have no idea what queer history it has."

"Do you belong to Gisors?"