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untries in which fine gardens were to be found, and he told the story of the American who asked the secret of those well-mown lawns and was answered, "Nothing is simpler: water them for twelve hundred years."
Then he inquired timidly whether he also might not be quartered at the ch?teau.
"It wouldn't do very well, sir; Madame is mortally afraid of new-comers, and she has a right, being a widow, to refuse to billet you."
"Aurelle, my boy, do be a good fellow, and go and arrange matters."
After much complaining, Madame de Vaucl?re consented to put the colonel up: all her sons were officers, and she could not withstand sentimental arguments for very long.
The next day Parker's orderly joined the doctor's in the ch?teau kitchen, and together they annexed the fireplace. To make room for their own utensils, they took down a lot of comical little French articles, removed what they saw no use for, put the kettle on, and whistled hymns as they filled the cupboards with tins of boot polish in scientifically graded rows.
After adoring them on the first day, putting up with them on the second, and cursing them on the third, the old cook came up to Aurelle with many lamentations, and dwelt at some length on the sad state of her saucepans; but she found the interpreter dealing with far more serious problems.
Colonel Parker, suddenly realizing that it was inconvenient for the general to be quartered away from his Staff, had decided to transfer the whole H.Q. to the ch?teau of Vaucl?re.
"Explain to the old lady that I want a very good room for the general, and the billiard-room for our clerks."
"Why, it's impossible, sir; she has no good room left."
"What about her own?" said Colonel Parker.
Madame de Vaucl?re, heart-broken, but vanquished by the magic word "General," which Aurelle kept on repeating sixty times a minute, tearfully abandoned her canopied bed and her red damask chairs, and took refuge on the second floor.
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