ost every word he said."

"Well, what did he say?" cried Rodd eagerly.

"Oh, he was a good-humoured droll fellow, though he looked so gruff, for
when I showed him my fish he slapped me on the shoulder and said, `Well
done, young 'un! You are one of the right sort after all.' And then he
told me to take the fish into his quarters, and his missus, as he called
her, would cook them for me so that I could take them to my sick father;
and when I thanked him he said it was all right, and that he and his
`missus' had been talking together about how bad the French captain
looked, and that I had better get him a nice little dish like that as
often as I could."

Morny stopped again, and Rodd gazed at him impatiently.

"Here, I say," he cried, "what a tantalising sort of chap you are! Why,
I could tell a story better than you."

"Why, I have told you the story," said Morny.

"No, you haven't. You keep stopping short when you come to what
interests me most."

"Nonsense! You don't want me to go on telling you about catching more
fish and getting them fried day after day, and about taking them up to
my father."

"What do you know about it?" cried Rodd. "It's just what I do want you
to tell me. Did he like them and eat them, and did they do him good?
Those are the best bits."

"You are a droll of boy," said Morny, laughing.

"I'm a what?" cried Rodd.

"Droll of boy--_drole de garcon. C'est juste, n'est-ce pas_?"

"Oh, if you like," cried Rodd merrily; "but if you don't think those are
the best parts of the story, which are?"

"Ah!" said Morny thoughtfully. "The part that I remember most is
feeling that somehow things are not always so black as they look, that
Dartmoor was not such a dreary desert, and that the fierce frowning
guards were not so hard and unpleasant as they seemed. There were times
after that when I was very happy there, for my father's wound began to
get better, and I found myself strong and well again. But after a time
there was a new governor there, who behaved very harshly to the
prisoners, and as we got well the great longing for freedom used to grow
within us, and some of the men tried to escape. This made the governor
more harsh and stern. We were kept more shut up--"

"And I suppose that made you long all the more to get free?"

"Of course," replied Morny; "and at last there came a time when we heard
a little news from across the sea--news which seemed to make my father
the Count