Turning into an inn, I fell into conversation with a postman, who made me
the offer of his company during the remainder of the journey. I readily
assented, and gave him a glass of absinthe--his favourite drink--before
leaving. He did not need it, for, as he confessed, he had been clinking
glasses with unusual zeal that day. He was a very droll fellow, a striking
type of the Southerner, whom it was difficult to look at with a serious
face, and whom no one with any sense of humour could really dislike,
notwithstanding his immense vanity and his immeasurable impudence. He had a
thick black beard, a long, sharp nose, dark eyes full of mischievous mirth,
and cheeks the colour of red wine. He wore a stiff new blouse with a red
collar--the badge of his office--and a straw hat like a beehive. The whole
of the way to Beaulieu his tongue was not still a minute. He told me
stories of his bravery and his love adventures with a most amusing accent
and intonation. The Rabelaisian expressions, which give such a peculiar
flavour to the conversation of the 'people' in Southern France, rolled off
his tongue with a sonority that could hardly have been excelled at Nimes
or Tarascon. His swagger, his gestures, and his elocutionary power were
amazing. He would stop walking, and, placing his stick--which he called
his _trique_--under his arm, would speak in a tragic stage-whisper; then,
clutching his _trique_ and flourishing it over his head, he would burst out
into a roar of laughter that made the dogs bark in the scattered farms for
miles around. Once, when we were passing under high rocks, he shouted with
such a terrible voice that he brought some loose stones rattling down upon
the road so close to us that my head, as well as his own, nearly paid the
penalty for thus exasperating the peaceful night. This was either the
effect of vibration or of the sudden movement of some bird or other
creature that he had startled far above us.

Among other things of which this amusing man talked to me was a visit of