a notary, "take him this bag with three hundred francs." I delivered this sum to the cattle dealer, to whom my punctuality gave confidence. We set out next day, and on the third morning my master calling to me, said, "Louis, can you write?"—"Yes, sir." "Reckon?"—"Yes, sir." "Keep an account?"—"Yes, sir."—"Ah, well; as I must go out of the road to see some lean beasts, at St Gauburge, you will drive the oxen on to Paris, with Jacques and Saturnin: you will be head man." He then gave me his instructions and left us.
By reason of my advancement, I no longer travelled on foot, which was a great relief to me; for the drivers of cattle are always stifled with dust, or up to their knees in mud, which increases as they proceed. I was besides, better paid and better fed, but I did not abuse these advantages, as I saw many other head drovers do on the journey. Whilst the food of the animals was converted by them into pullets, or legs of mutton, or exchanged with the innkeepers, the poor brutes grew visibly thinner.
I behaved myself most faithfully, so that on joining us at Verneuil, my master, who had preceded us, complimented me on the state of the drove. On reaching Sceaux, my beasts were worth twenty francs a-head more than any others, and I had spent ninety francs less than my companions for my travelling expenses. My master, enchanted, made me a present of forty francs, and cited me as the Aristides of cattle drovers, and I was in some sort quite an object of admiration at the market of Sceaux, and, in return, my colleagues would willingly have knocked me on the head. One of them, a chap of Lower Normandy, famed for strength and skill, endeavoured to disgust me with my avocation, by taking upon himself to inflict the popular vengeance upon me; but what could such a clumsy yokel do against the pupil of the renowned Goupy! The Low Norman cried craven, after one of the most
