RECOLLECTIONS, 1875-80. 63 



Albany in two or three carriages waiting for us 1 no- 

 ticed that we were all, I thought what you call in 

 English " half seas over ; " No ! not quite so, but what 

 the French call to be " Dans les Yignes du Seigneur " 

 literally in English " In the vineyards of the Lord." 

 When we left Mr. Coming's place and before we got 

 in the carriages I cast a look at the whole company and 

 I concluded that not one of. our company of Trojans 

 of whom I was one of them, were in a condition to 

 think to give a gratification to the drivers who had 

 been waiting for us perhaps an hour or more so. I did 

 it although I thought I was not much better than all 

 the rest, but you will see when men are men and de- 

 termined to be so what they will do. When we arrived 

 to Albany we found we had missed the train we wanted 

 to go by, so we had to wait one hour. You probably 

 suppose that during that one hour we would to kill the 

 time, to irrigate ourselves again. Well, we did it, we 

 went in a restaurant where I had never been, where we 

 drank every one of us a cup of tea, nothing else. Was 

 not that heroic ! ! ! This happened 10 or 12 (or more) 

 years ago. From that time our meetings became lees 

 frequent and our enthusiasm followed the same pro- 

 gression i. e., went backward. Our last proselyte, 

 neophyte, had to give up his collections ; that which 

 cooled our energy; for he was a powerful stimulant, 

 two strong for his constitution for his own good, 



