After it was all over and “Moritz Baeader Courrier et Interprete” was duly inscribed,—­and in justice it must be confessed it was always clearly written with a flourish at the end that lent it additional dignity,—­Baeader would pause for a moment, carefully balance the pen, trying it first on his thumb-nail, and then place two little dots of ink over the first a, saying, with a certain wave of his hand, as he did so, “For ze honor of my families, monsieur.”  This peculiarity gained for him from the governor the sobriquet of “old fly-specks.”

The inn of Mme. Flamand, although less pretentious than many others that had sheltered us, was clean and comfortable, the lower deck and companionway were freshly sanded,—­the whole house had a decidedly nautical air about it,—­and the captain’s state-room on the upper deck, a second-floor room, was large and well-lighted, although the ceiling might have been a trifle too low for the governor, and the bed a few inches too short.

I ascended to the upper deck, preceded by the hostess carrying the ship’s lantern, now that the last guest had been housed for the night.  Baeader followed with a brass candlestick and a tallow dip about the size of a lead pencil.  With the swinging open of the bedroom door, I made a mental inventory of all the conveniences:  bed, two pillows, plenty of windows, washstand, towels.  Then the all-important question recurred to me, Where had they hidden the portable tub?

I opened the door of the locker, looked behind a sea-chest, then out of one window, expecting to see the green-painted luxury hanging by a hook or drying on a convenient roof.  In some surprise I said:—­

“And the bath, Baeader?”

“Does monsieur expect to bathe at ze night?” inquired Baeader with a lifting of his eyebrows, his face expressing a certain alarm for my safety.

“No, certainly not; but to-morrow, when I get up.”

“Ah, to-morrow!” with a sigh of relief.  “I do assure you, monsieur, zat it will be complete.  At ze moment of ze deflexion of monsieur le gouverneur zare was not ze time.  Of course it is imposseeble in Cancale to have ze grand bain of Paris, but then zare is still something,—­a bath quite special, simple, and of ze people.  Remember, monsieur, it is Baeader.”

And so, with a cheery “Bon soir” from madame, and a profound bow from Baeader, I fell asleep.

The next morning I was awakened by a rumbling in the lower hold, as if the cargo was being shifted.  Then came a noise like the moving of heavy barrels on the upper deck forward of the companionway.  The next instant my door was burst open, and in stalked two brawny, big-armed fish-girls, yarn-stockinged to their knees, and with white sabots and caps.  They were trundling the lower half of a huge hogshead.

“Pour le bain, monsieur,” they both called out, bursting into laughter, as they rolled the mammoth tub behind my bed, grounded it with a revolving whirl, as a juggler would spin a plate, and disappeared, slamming the door behind them, their merriment growing fainter as they dropped down the companionway.