old;
but two days before we set sail for the islands the Versaillais troops
had swept the boulevards, and every steamer had brought newspapers from
the mainland. Mrs. Hicks' eyes grew bigger and rounder as she listened;
but she had listened a very short while before she cried--

"Father must hear this! He's up polishin' the lantern, sir. Begging
your pardon, but he must hear you tell it; he must indeed." With
immense pride she added, "He was over to France, one time."

She marched us off to the lantern, up the winding stairway, up the
ladder, and into the great glass cage, where stood an old man busily
polishing the brass reflector.

"Father, here's a gentleman come, with news from France!"

As the old man came forward with a fumbling step, my father drew a thick
bundle from his coat pocket. "I've brought you some newspapers," said
he; "they will tell you more than I can."

He held them out, but the wife interposed hurriedly. "Not to him, sir.
Give them to Reuben, if you please, and thank you. But he, sir--he's
blind."

I looked, as my father looked. A film covered both pupils of the old
man's eyes.

"He've been blind these seven years," Reuben explained in a low voice.
"Me and Sam are the regular keepers now; but the Board lets him live on
here, and he's terrible clever at polishing."

"He knows the lamp so well as ever he did," broke in the old woman;
"the leastest little scratch, he don't miss it. How he doesn' break his
poor neck is more'n I can tell; but he don't--though 'tis a sore trial."

While they explained, the old man's hand went out to caress the lamp,
but stopped within an inch of the sparkling lenses.

"Iss," said he musingly, "with this here cataract I misses a brave lot.
There's a lot to be seen up here, for a man with eyesight. Will 'ee
tell me, please sir, what's the news from France? I was over there, one
time."

It turned out he had once paid a visit to one of the small Breton ports:
Roscoff I think it was, and have a suspicion that smuggling lay at the
bottom of the business there.

"Well now," he commented as my father told something of his tale,
"I wouldn' have thought it of the Johnnies. They treated me very
pleasant, and I speak of a man as I find en." He turned his sightless
eyes on the family he had brought up to think well of Frenchmen.

"They are different folk in Paris."

"Iss, that's a big place. Cherbourg's a big place, too, they tell me.
I came near goin