It was not exactly the first time, since he was mayor of Sauveterre,
that he was thus roused by a peasant, who came and cried under his
window, "Help! Fire, fire!"

At first, filled with compassion, he had hastily called out the firemen,
put himself at their head, and hurried to the fire.

And when they reached it, out of breath, and perspiring, after having
made two or three miles at double-quick, they found what? A wretched
heap of straw, worth about ten dollars, and almost consumed by the fire.
They had had their trouble for nothing.

The peasants in the neighborhood had cried, "Wolf!" so often, when there
was no reason for it, that, even when the wolf really was there, the
townspeople were slow in believing it.

"Let us see," said M. Seneschal: "what is burning?"

The peasant seemed to be furious at all these delays, and bit his long
whip.

"Must I tell you again and again," he said, "that every thing is on
fire,--barns, outhouses, haystacks, the houses, the old castle, and
every thing? If you wait much longer, you won't find one stone upon
another in Valpinson."

The effect produced by this name was prodigious.

"What?" asked the mayor in a half-stifled voice, "Valpinson is on fire?"