WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 243 



him infinite credit as an obliging, if not a disinterested, host : he 

 proposed that Madame Thomas and he should vacate their own 

 apartment and occupy a room on the ground-floor. Now, on 

 the Continent, especially among the French and Germans, the 

 rez-de-chaussee, under the impression of its unhealthiness during 

 the night-season, is usually occupied only by those whose circum- 

 stances compel them to sleep below stairs. This offer was at 

 once accepted, though, in order to show his full appreciation of 

 the sacrifice which the worthy couple were so ready to make, 

 St. Prix made as many apologies to Madame Thomas for 

 dispossessing her as if he were addressing the first duchess of 

 the land. I discovered afterwards that the " room on the ground- 

 floor" was no other than the kitchen, and their sleeping quarters 

 a hole in the wall, some six feet above the floor of the apartment 

 a recess originally intended for the batter ie-de-cuisine, but now 

 converted into a dormitory, not unlike in the form of its 

 excavation to one of those loculi, in which a couple of skeletons 

 may be seen reposing side by side, sleeping the long sleep of 

 death, in some Italian catacomb. But Thomas and his spouse 

 were anything but skeletons ; and how on earth the outside 

 sleeping partner contrived to hold his or her own in such narrow 

 quarters, without tumbling overboard, will remain a mystery to 

 me to the end of the chapter. 



This arrangement, however inconvenient to them, not only 

 gave our party the needful accommodation, but also insured the 

 early rising of the host and hostess an important result, seeing 

 that he performed the office of cook and she of waiting-maid 

 to the establishment, and this, too, with an efficiency I have 

 rarely seen equalled. Accordingly, before the peep of day, a sub- 

 stantial breakfast of mutton cutlets, omelets cooked to a second, 

 and hot coffee smoked upon the board; and even Keryfan, 

 who had been considerably disconcerted by the absence of his 

 usual toilet accompaniments, was ready to endorse St. Prix's 



