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“You will do nothing of the kind,” said the Master of the House; “let the boy weed it alone.”

“Never!” cried John, in horror. “He will trample on all the vines!”

“Then tell him to do something else.” And, without waiting for John to give the order, he called out: “Ahoy, there, boy! Clear out of this garden!”

The boy vanished with celerity, and John Gayther sank upon his stool with an air of resignation. But no sooner had the Frenchman uttered a few sentences than he brightened up, and not only listened attentively but put aside the disagreeable feeling he had had for him. The beginning of the narrative lifted a load from his mind.

The Frenchman, having again betaken himself to the grassy mound, began in an easy, airy way:

“I am a sportsman as well as a Frenchman. It seems hardly necessary to mention both of these things at once, for in my mind they naturally go together. I am expert in many kinds of sports, and it pleases me much, when engaged in such recreations, to employ my mind as well as my body, and in so doing I frequently devise methods of pursuing my favorite sports which are never made use of by ordinary and unimaginative persons.

“My Irene–she is my wife–is also addicted to sport. It was partly for this reason that I married her. It is not always by sharing my dangers and my glories that my dear Irene shows her passion for the outdoor sports which are so fascinating to me; it is often that she does this merely by sympathy. She can remain at home and think of me in the field or on the stream, and be happy. When I return she welcomes, she appreciates. If I overstay my time I do not give myself worry–I know that she will understand that there are contingencies. When she greets me there are no reproaches. She is the wife for a sportsman!

“But it is not always that I rely simply upon the sympathy of my Irene. It was not so when I went in a balloon to hunt tigers. She was then at my side, for there was no other place where she would have been satisfied, or where I would have had her. There are vicissitudes which should be faced together by those who love.

“I had long wished to hunt tigers, and it had come into my head that it would be a grand and novel idea, and also extremely practicable, to shoot at these savage creatures from a balloon. This would be an exhilarating sensation, and it would be safe. In no other way would I take my Irene with me when tiger-hunting; and in no other way, I freely admit, would I be very desirous of going myself.

“I have heard that one of my countrymen had himself shut up in a stout cage and conveyed to a region infested by tigers. There, with his rifle, he sat comfortably in a chair, with a lantern on a table near by. When, at night, the tigers crowded round his cage, he shot them. But this would not have suited me. Suppose a bar of the cage should have been broken!

“But in a balloon it would be different. Poised in the air a moderate distance above the ground, I could shoot at tigers beneath me and laugh at their efforts to reach my height. Therefore it was that I determined to hunt my tigers in a balloon. Irene screamed when I mentioned this plan, but she did not refuse to go with me. She had been in balloons, but she had never seen an unrestricted tiger. Now she could enjoy these two pleasures at once, and be with me.

“This happened in French Tonkin. We were in a little outlying town where there was a garrison, and some engineers who made military observations in a balloon. This was a captive balloon not employed for independent ascensions, and from some of the officers, who were my friends, I procured it for my projected tiger hunt. They were all much interested in my expedition, for if it succeeded there would be a new variety of sport in this monotonous region.