lose the chance of a breakfast _chez Aubourg_.

[Illustration: "Le vrai dernier!"]

How pleased Mlle. AUBOURG, the waitress, appeared to be when
we returned! All the family prepared to kill the fatted calf
figuratively, as it took the shape of the sweetest and freshest
shrimps as _hors d'oeuvre_, and then it became an omelette _au lard_
("O La!") absolutely unsurpassable, and a _poulet sauté_, which was
about the best that ever we tasted. A good bottle of the ordinary
generous, fruit, and then a cup of recently roasted and freshly
ground coffee with a thimbleful of some special Normandy cognac,--in
which our cheery host joined us, and we all drank one another's
healths,--completed as good a _déjeuner_ as any man or woman of simple
tastes could possibly desire.

[Illustration: M. Aubourg fils comes out for a blow. The Son and Air.]

Then the cheery son of the house, dressed in a cook's cap and apron,
pauses in his work to join in our conversation. He tells us how he has
been in London, and can speak English, and is enthusiastic about the
satiric journal which _Mr. Punch_ publishes weekly. M. AUBOURG _fils_
who is a truthful likeness, on a large scale, of M. DAUBRAY, of the
Palais Royal, informs me that he can play the horn after the manner of
the guards on the coaches starting from the "White Horse," Piccadilly;
and so, when we start for Etretat, he produces a big _cor de chasse_,
and, while he sounds the farewell upon it, a maid rushes out and rings
the parting bell, and M. AUBOURG _pére_ waves his cap, and Madame
her hand, and Mlle. her _serviette_, and we respond with hat and
handkerchief until we turn the corner, and hear the last flourish of