The lawyer accompanied his resuscitated friend down stairs.  The velveteen waistcoat exhibited an ample shirt-front, and had pockets with flaps like the coat.  The dominie’s own blue and yellow silk handkerchief was tied in a sailor’s knot round a rakish collar, that compromised between a turn-down and a stand-up; and his nether garments began with the dark and light blue broad-striped trousers and ended in a large pair of felt slippers, admirable footgear, no doubt, for seasons of extreme cold.  Thus attired, Wilkinson occupied the sitting-room, and returned to the study of Alphonse Karr.  Mr. Toner had left the string of fish by the door, where it was quite safe.  There seemed to be no boys, no dogs, no cats, about the quiet Beaver River.  Once in a long while, a solitary figure might be perceived going to or returning from the store.  The only possible thief of the fish would have been a stray mink or otter prospecting for a new home, unless, indeed, Madame’s fowls had escaped from the poultry yard.  Coristine brought the string to his disguised companion, just as the hostess arrived to enquire after his health and renew the French conversation.  Having replied politely to her questions, the schoolmaster expressed his regret that the fish were so poor and especially that he had been deceived in the “suceurs.”  Madame did not comprehend, and said “Plait il?” whereupon he called his friend near and pointed out the offending fish.  “Aw oui, M’syae, ce sont des mulets de l’eau douce, un petit peu trop tawrd dons la saison, autrement un morceau friaund.”  Then she proceeded to say that the smaller fish could be cooked for supper, “comme les eperlans de law baw,” pointing with her finger eastward, to designate, by the latter words, the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  She would boil the mullets, if Monsieur did not object, and give them to the fowls; did Monsieur take an interest in fowls?  Generously the dominie handed over all the fish, through Coristine, for Madame to do what she liked with, and expressed an interest in various descriptions of poultry, the names of which he was entirely ignorant of.  The interview over, he returned to his book, and the lawyer went to look for his civil acquaintance, Mr. Toner.  Him he found on the bridge, and in a somewhat sulky humour, apparently by no means pleased at being sought out.  Not wishing to intrude, Coristine made an excuse for his appearance in the bits of board, which he professed to have forgotten to take out of the dug-out.  “That sort of lumber don’t count for much in these parts,” remarked Ben, suspiciously, and his intending companion retired, feeling that, though a limb of the law, he was a miserable sham.