A TRUFFLE-HUNTER 219 



ungroomed, w/id quite inadmissible to the intimacies of 

 the hearthrug. Talent and poverty are often mated. 



His master, a celebrated rabassier^ of the village, being 

 convinced that my object was not to steal his professional 

 secrets, and so sooner or later to set up in business as a 

 competitor, admitted me of his company, a favour of 

 which he was not prodigal. From the moment of his 

 regarding me not as an apprentice, but merely as a 

 curious spectator, who drew and wrote about sub- 

 terranean vegetable affairs, but had no wish to carry 

 to market my bagful of these glories of the Christmas 

 goose, the excellent man lent himself generously to my 

 designs. 



It was agreed between us that the dog should act 

 according to his own instincts, receiving the customary 

 reward, after each discovery, no matter what its size, of 

 a crust of bread the size of a finger-nail. Every spot 

 scratched by his paw should be excavated, and the object 

 indicated was to be extracted without reference to its 

 marketable value. In no case was the experience of the 

 master to intervene in order to divert the dog from a 

 spot where the general aspect of things indicated that no 

 commercial results need be expected, for I was more 

 concerned with the miserable specimens unfit for the 

 market than with the choice specimens, though of course 

 the latter were welcomed. 



Thus conducted, this subterranean botanising was 

 extremely fruitful. With that perspicacious nose of 

 his the dog obtained for me both large and small, 

 fresh and putrid, odorous and inodorous, fragrant and 



' Rabasso is the Provengal name for the truffle ; hence a truffle- 

 bunter is known as a rabassigr. 



