eyes chanced to meet mine. They
seemed like good, deep water, and just for a second the thought
crossed my mind that perhaps he knew more of the real troubles of life
than his intellectual opportunities might suggest.

"No, Skipper," was all I said. "We doctors, anyhow, find them quite as
scarce."

"Well, Doctor," he added, "please God if I gets a skin t' winter I'll
try and pay you for your visit, anyhow. But I hasn't a cent in the
world just now. The old couple has taken the little us had put by."

"Skipper John, what relation are those people to you?"

"Well, Doctor, no relation 'zactly."

"Do they pay nothing at all?"

"Them has nothing," he replied.

"Why did you take them in?"

"They was homeless, Doctor, and the old lady was already blind."

"How long have they been with you?"

"Just twelve months come Saturday."

"Thanks, Skipper," was all I could say, but I found myself standing
with my hat off in the presence of this man. I thought then, and still
think, I had received one of my largest fees.

TWO CAT'S-PAWS

Jean Marquette had nothing French about him but his name. Indeed
"ne'er a word of French" could the old man remember, for he had lived
for many years on the bleak, northeast side of Labrador; and few folk
knew why, for all his forbears from sunny France had studiously
avoided the Atlantic seaboard.

Over his evening pipe, when the sparkling forks of fire bursting from
the crackling logs seemed to materialize before his eyes again the
scenes of his venturous life in the wild, as if they had been
imperishably imprinted in the old trunks which had witnessed them, the
old _coureur de bois_ spirit, and even accent, flashed out as he
carried his listeners back into the gallant days of the men who
founded the great _seigneuries_ which still stretch along the thousand
miles of coast from the barren Atlantic seaboard to the bold heights
of Quebec.

In this country, only separated from the land of Evangeline by a few
miles of salt water, one might reasonably suppose that the good folk
would look to the soil and the peaceful pursuits of Arcady for at
least some part of their daily bread. But, with the exception of a few
watery potatoes, Uncle Johnnie had never "growed e'er a thing in his
life." His rifle and axe, his traps and his lines, had exacted
sufficient tribute from wild nature around him, not only to keep the
wolf from the door, but to lay up in the stocking in his ancient
Frenc