ce chez un farmyer
a Mo'real. An' le Pere Honore was tak' la petite verole--shmall pookes
in de sugair-house, an' de farmyer was gif him to eat an' to drrink par
la porte--de door; de farmyer haf non passe par de door. Le Pere Honore
m'a sauve--haf safe, hein? An' Ah was been work ten, twenty, dirty year,
Ah tink. Ah gagne--gain, hein?--two hundert pieces. Ah been come to de
quairries, pour l'amour de bon Pere Honore qui m'a safe, hein? Ah be
tres content; Ah gagne, gain two, tree pieces--dollaires--par jour."

He nodded at one and all, his gold half-moon earrings twinkling in his
evident satisfaction with himself and "le bon Pere Honore."

The men were silent. Jim McCann's eyes were blurred with tears. The
thought of his own six-months boy presented itself in contrast to the
small waif in the Canada woods and the dying gypsy mother, nursed by the
priest who had christened his own little Billy.

"It's a bad night for the lecture," said a Scotchman, and broke
therewith the emotional spell that was holding the men who had made out
the principal points of Antoine's story.

"Yes, but Father Honore says it's all about the cathedrals, an' not many
will want to miss it," said another. "They say there's a crowd coming
down from the quarries to-night to hear it."

"Faith, an' it's Mr. Van Ostend will be after havin' to put on an a
trailer to his new hall," said McCann; "the b'ys know a good thing whin
they see it, an' we was like to smother, the whole kit of us, whin they
had the last pitchers of them mountins in Alasky on the sheet. It's the
stairioptican that takes best wid the b'ys."

The four o'clock whistle began to sound. Three hundred chisels and
hammers were dropped on the instant. The men hurried to the doors that
were opened their full width to give egress to the hastening throngs.
They streamed out; there was laughing and chaffing; now and then, among
the younger ones, some good-natured fisticuffs were exchanged. Many
sought the electrics to The Gore; others took the car to The Corners.
From the three sheds, the power-house, the engine-house, the office, the
dark files streamed forth from their toil. Within fifteen minutes the
lights were turned out, the watchman was making his first round. Instead
of the sounds of a vast industry, nothing was heard but the
_sz-szz-szzz_ of the vanishing trams, the sputter of an arc-light, the
barking of a dog. The gray twilight of a bleak March day shut down
rapidly over frozen