he looked about him as though the improvements
were already made. It was plainly not the first time that he had thus
beautified his cabin in imagination; and when next he makes a hit, I
should expect to see the writing-table in the middle.

Madame had three birds in a cage. They were no great thing, she
explained. Fine birds were so dear. They had sought to get a
_Hollandais_ last winter in Rouen (Rouen? thought I; and is this whole
mansion, with its dogs and birds and smoking chimneys, so far a
traveller as that? and as homely an object among the cliffs and orchards
of the Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?)--they had sought to get
a _Hollandais_ last winter in Rouen; but these cost fifteen francs
apiece--picture it--fifteen francs!

"_Pour un tout petit oiseau_--For quite a little bird," added the
husband.

As I continued to admire, the apologetics died away, and the good people
began to brag of their barge, and their happy condition in life, as if
they had been Emperor and Empress of the Indies. It was, in the Scots
phrase, a good hearing, and put me in good humour with the world. If
people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to hear a man boasting, so
long as he boasts of what he really has, I believe they would do it more
freely and with a better grace.

They began to ask about our voyage. You should have seen how they
sympathized. They seemed half ready to give up their barge and follow
us. But these _canaletti_ are only gypsies semi-domesticated. The
semi-domestication came out in rather a pretty form. Suddenly Madame's
brow darkened. "_Cependant_," she began, and then stopped; and then
began again by asking me if I were single.

"Yes," said I.

"And your friend who went by just now?"

He also was unmarried.

O then--all was well. She could not have wives left alone at home; but
since there were no wives in the question, we were doing the best we
could.

"To see about one in the world," said the husband, "_il n'y a que
ca_--there is nothing else worth while. A man, look you, who sticks in
his own village like a bear," he went on, "--very well, he sees
nothing. And then death is the end of all. And he has seen nothing."

Madame reminded her husband of an Englishman who had come up this canal
in a steamer.

"Perhaps Mr. Moens in the _Ytene_," I suggested.

"That's it," assented the husband. "He had his wife and family with him,
and servants. He came ashore at all the locks and asked the name