The companions had a glass of ale after dinner, which was quite indefensible, for they had had a sufficiency at that bounteous repast.  Evidently, the dominie was in for a good time.  A wizened old fellow, named Batiste, with a permanent crick in his back, dug the worms, and presented them to the lawyer in an empty lobster tin, the outside of which was covered with texts of Scripture.  “It seems almost profane,” remarked the recipient, “to carry worms inside so much Bible language.”  But the merry schoolmaster remarked that it was turn about, for he had heard a Scotch preacher, who seemed to know the whole Bible by heart, say in prayer, on behalf of himself and his people, “we are all poor wurrums of the airth.”  “Probably, however,” he continued, “he would have objected to be treated as a worm.”

“They say even a worm will turn, which, if your parson was a large man, might be serious enough,” replied the lawyer.  “I remember, when I was a small boy, thinking that the Kings of Israel kept large men for crushing their enemies, because they used to say, ’Go and fall upon him, and he fell upon him and he died.’  That might be the way with the human wurrum.  It’s not always safe to trust these humble men.”

“Corry, you’re a profane man; your treatment of sacred things is scandalously irreverent,” said the dominie.

“Who began it?” retorted the victim.

“You did, sir, with your textual lobster can,” replied the reprover.

“The ancient Hebrews, in the height of their pride and glory, knew not the luxury of lobster salad,” Coristine remarked, gravely, as if reciting a piece.

“How do you know that?”

“Because, if I offer a prize of a Trip to the Dark Continent to the first person buying a copy of our published travels, who finds the word lobster in the Bible, I shall never have occasion to purchase the ticket.”

As they moved in the direction of the river, Pierre came after them and asked:—­

“You make your feeshing off ze bord or in ze vatars!”

“I prefer the board,” replied Coristine, “if it’s as good of its kind as that you gave us at dinner.”

“Keep quiet, you do not understand him,” interposed the schoolmaster; “he means the shore, the bank of the river by the bord.  N’est ce pas, Monsieur?”

“Oui, oui, M’syae, le bord, le rivauge de la riviere.”

“Non, Monsieur Pierre, nous allons prendre le bateau,” answered Wilkinson, with a dignity that his companion envied.

The red-nightcapped host called Baptiste.

“Vau t-en donc, Bawtiste, depeche twa, trouve deux petits bouts de plaunche pour le canot.”

Batiste soon returned with two boards.

“Canot ’ave no seat, you placea zem over two ends for seet down,” said Pierre, relapsing into English.

Wilkinson assumed the responsibility of the boards and the fishermen proceeded to the river bank near the bridge to find the canoe.  It was long, and, for a dug-out, fairly wide, but ancient and black, and moist at the bottom, owing to an insufficiently caulked crack.  Its paddles had seen much service, and presented but little breadth of blade.