trouble you, M. Ducas, but duty is duty, you know. Will
you kindly accompany us over your premises?'

"'Certainly.'

"Then they searched high and low, but nothing could they find. Dinner
was being served. Would they join us at table?

"'Thanks, very pleased to.'

"So they sat down. My father, after dinner, handed them a bottle of the
'right sort,' of which they were connoisseurs, and they enjoyed it. It
was a hot day, and everything was greatly in want of rain, and being so
hot and dry they strolled out into the garden, preparatory to taking
their leave.

"'How are monsieur's pigs? Oh, ah, very fine fellows! Do you give them
much green food?'

"Yes, a fair amount,' my father replied, and pulling up the nearest
cabbage to him, threw it to the animals.

"'What a pity to waste such a fine cabbage,' said the chief officer.
'Why not give them one of those which are languishing so for want of
water?' and reaching over he made a big pull at one, which, to his
astonishment, came out of the ground without any resistance. 'Hello!
what's this, Ducas? Why, all the middle ones seem to be in a sad way!
See, they are-hanging their heads. Perhaps the soil is not congenial to
their growth. _Have you a spade?_'

"It was all up. The spade had to be forthcoming, and the end of it
was,--'Fined two hundred francs or thirty-five days in prison.'"

"Well, Alec, that's not half bad. Spin us another."

"Ah, well, I could spin you enough yarns to make a frigate's cable, and
a thick one too, if you would only listen to them."

"Very good. Then let me have another strand towards the said ship's
cable; but don't spin it _too thick_."

"Let's see, which one shall I give you? Oh, I know; but it's one that
did _not_ end in a fine, though it was a very close shave. I was quite a
youngster, but anything but a green hand at the business, for I had
accompanied my father on many occasions on which he did not bring home
merely soles or _longue-nez_ for freight. Just before the occasion of
which I am about to tell you there had been a gale, and during the worst
of the blow a Norwegian vessel had jettisoned her deck load of spruce
poles, and we being out fishing a day or two after, happened, as luck
would have it, to fall in with some of them. As we had some spare rope
aboard we made a kind of raft of them, and commenced towing them towards
the harbour, which was only five or six miles distant.

"Now it so happened that a fishing boat passed us