observed, or picked up; to smack one's lips, to relish, as one tells it over to one's self, something one snapped up hastily—it seems to melt in one's mouth, and slip down softly; and how good it is to glance around one's little world and say, "All this is mine, here I am lord and master, no frost or cold can nip me; here reigns no king, no pope! Not even my old shrew!" But now I must take an account of this world of mine.
The first and best of my possessions is myself, Colas Breugnon, a good Burgundian, plain and straightforward, with a well-rounded waistcoat. I am not exactly in my first youth—fifty last birthday,—but well set-up, my teeth still good, and my sight as clear as a fish's. My beard still sprouts vigorously, but is undoubtedly grayish, and I can't help regretting the fair hair of my youth, and would not say no, if you offered to set my clock back twenty or thirty years. But after all ten lusters are a fine thing. The youngsters may laugh, but how many of them could have paraded up and down France as I have done, for all these years? Lord! how much sun and rain have hit this old back! I have been roasted, soaked, and warmed over dozens of times and my body, like a cracked leather sack, is full of joy and sorrow, spite and good-humor, wisdom and folly, hay and straw, figs
