illiam
furnishes the Babe with enough money to compensate the farmer for all
damages we have not committed, and then effaces himself. Donning a
bright smile the Babe approaches the farmer and presses the lucre into
his honest palm.

"Hi," says the worthy fellow, "what is this, then? One hundred francs!
Where is the seventy-four francs, six centimes for the fleas your dog
stole? The two hundred francs, three centimes for the indigestion your
rations gave my pig? The eight thousand and ninety-nine francs, five
centimes insurance money I should have collected if your brigands had
not stopped my barn from burning?--and all the other little damages,
three million, eight hundred thousand and forty-four francs, one
centime in all--where is it, _hein_?"

"Ec-c-coutez une moment," the Babe begins, "Jer p-p-poovay expliquay
tut--tut--tut--tut--sh-sh-shiss--" says he, loosening his stammer at
rapid fire, popping and hissing, rushing and hitching like a red-hot
machine-gun with a siphon attachment. In five minutes the farmer is
white in the face and imploring the Babe to let by-gones be by-gones.
"N-n-not a b-bit of it, old t-top," says the Babe. "Jer p-p-poovay
exp-p-pliquay b-b-bub-bub-bub--" and away it goes again like a
combined steam-riveter and shower-bath, like the water coming down
at Lodore. No farmer however hardy has been known to stand more than
twenty minutes of this. A quarter-of-an-hour usually sees him bolting
and barring himself into the cellar, with the Babe blowing him kisses
of fond farewell through the keyhole.

We are billeted on a farm at the present moment. The Skipper occupies
the best bed; the rest of us are doing the _al fresco_ touch in tents
and bivouacs scattered about the surrounding landscape. We are on very
intimate terms with the genial farmyard folk. Every morning I awake to
find half-a-dozen hens and their gentleman-friend roosting along my
anatomy. One of the hens laid an egg in my ear this morning. William
says she mistook it for her nest, but I take it the hen, as an honest
bird, was merely paying rent for the roost.

The Babe turned up at breakfast this morning wearing only half a
moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he
slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since--a
moustache must be very ticklish to digest.

Yesterday MacTavish, while engaged in taking his tub in the open,
noticed that his bath-water was mysteriously sinking lower and lowe