“’Very sorry to trouble you, M. Ducas, but duty is duty, you know.  Will you kindly accompany us over your premises?’

“‘Certainly.’

“Then they searched high and low, but nothing could they find.  Dinner was being served.  Would they join us at table?

“‘Thanks, very pleased to.’

“So they sat down.  My father, after dinner, handed them a bottle of the ‘right sort,’ of which they were connoisseurs, and they enjoyed it.  It was a hot day, and everything was greatly in want of rain, and being so hot and dry they strolled out into the garden, preparatory to taking their leave.

“’How are monsieur’s pigs?  Oh, ah, very fine fellows!  Do you give them much green food?’

“Yes, a fair amount,’ my father replied, and pulling up the nearest cabbage to him, threw it to the animals.

“‘What a pity to waste such a fine cabbage,’ said the chief officer.  ’Why not give them one of those which are languishing so for want of water?’ and reaching over he made a big pull at one, which, to his astonishment, came out of the ground without any resistance.  ’Hello! what’s this, Ducas?  Why, all the middle ones seem to be in a sad way!  See, they are-hanging their heads.  Perhaps the soil is not congenial to their growth. Have you a spade?’

“It was all up.  The spade had to be forthcoming, and the end of it was,—­’Fined two hundred francs or thirty-five days in prison.’”

“Well, Alec, that’s not half bad.  Spin us another.”

“Ah, well, I could spin you enough yarns to make a frigate’s cable, and a thick one too, if you would only listen to them.”

“Very good.  Then let me have another strand towards the said ship’s cable; but don’t spin it too thick.”

“Let’s see, which one shall I give you?  Oh, I know; but it’s one that did not end in a fine, though it was a very close shave.  I was quite a youngster, but anything but a green hand at the business, for I had accompanied my father on many occasions on which he did not bring home merely soles or longue-nez for freight.  Just before the occasion of which I am about to tell you there had been a gale, and during the worst of the blow a Norwegian vessel had jettisoned her deck load of spruce poles, and we being out fishing a day or two after, happened, as luck would have it, to fall in with some of them.  As we had some spare rope aboard we made a kind of raft of them, and commenced towing them towards the harbour, which was only five or six miles distant.

“Now it so happened that a fishing boat passed us as we tugged our timber along, and what is more remarkable, upon my father holding up a white pail a man at the stern of the lugger did the same, then altering her canvas she made a tack (where one was not required), and coming very close to us dropped overboard a series of black tin cases, which were no doubt hermetically sealed, to preserve their contents.  These cylinders were so nicely balanced that the rounded sides of them just showed above the water, and no more.  Some more cabalistic signs then passed between my father and the lugger’s skipper, as she stood away on her course, and in an hour was out of sight round the cape.  We made fast the cylinders (which were attached to a rope) underneath the raft, and standing in for shore and entered the little port.