h his professional whine,
"pour l'amour de Dieu!"

"Gad! you are the jolliest beggar I know out of the Friponne," replied
Cadet, throwing him a crown.

"He is not a jollier beggar than I am, your Honor," said Max Grimeau,
grinning like an Alsatian over a Strasbourg pie. "It was I sang bass in
the ballad as you came in--you might have heard me, your Honor?"

"To be sure I did; I will be sworn there is not a jollier beggar in
Quebec than you, old Max! Here is a crown for you too, to drink the
Intendant's health and another for you, you roving limb of the law,
Master Pothier! Come, Master Pothier! I will fill your ragged gown
full as a demijohn of brandy if you will go on with the song you were
singing."

"We were at the old ballad of the Pont d'Avignon, your Honor," replied
Master Pothier.

"And I was playing it," interrupted Jean La Marche; "you might have
heard my violin, it is a good one!" Jean would not hide his talent in
a napkin on so auspicious an occasion as this. He ran his bow over the
strings and played a few bars,--"that was the tune, your Honor."

"Ay, that was it! I know the jolly old song! Now go on!" Cadet thrust
his thumbs into the armholes of his laced waistcoat and listened
attentively; rough as he was, he liked the old Canadian music.

Jean tuned his fiddle afresh, and placing it with a knowing jerk under
his chin, and with an air of conceit worthy of Lulli, began to sing and
play the old ballad:

"'A St. Malo, beau port de mer,
Trois navires sont arrives,
Charges d'avoine, charges de bled;
Trois dames s'en vont les merchander!'"

"Tut!" exclaimed Varin, "who cares for things that have no more point in
them than a dumpling! give us a madrigal, or one of the devil's ditties
from the Quartier Latin!"

"I do not know a 'devil's ditty,' and would not sing one if I did,"
replied Jean La Marche, jealous of the ballads of his own New France.
"Indians cannot swear because they know no oaths, and habitans cannot
sing devil's ditties because they never learned them; but 'St. Malo,
beau port de mer,'--I will sing that with any man in the Colony!"

The popular songs of the French Canadians are simple, almost infantine,
in their language, and as chaste in expression as the hymns of other
countries. Impure songs originate in classes who know better, and revel
from choice in musical slang and indecency.

"Sing what you like! and never mind Varin, my good fellow," said Cad