l experience, produced the most excellent
results. Moreover, he had no interest, as ordinary doctors have, in
prolonging illnesses. For many years past the only formality recognised
as a guarantee for the inviolability of a contract had been the
intervention of the fisherman. Each party shook hands with Solomon,
and the thing was done. They would rather have thrown themselves into
Vesuvius at the moment of its most violent eruption than have broken
so solemn an agreement. At the period when our story opens, it was
impossible to find any person in the island who had not felt the effects
of the fisherman's generosity, and that without needing to confess to
him any necessities. As it was the custom for the little populace of
Nisida to spend its leisure hours before Solomon's cottage, the old man,
while he walked slowly among the different groups, humming his favourite
song, discovered moral and physical weaknesses as he passed; and
the same evening he or his daughter would certainly be seen coming
mysteriously to bestow a benefit upon every sufferer, to lay a balm upon
every wound. In short, he united in his person all those occupations
whose business is to help mankind. Lawyers, doctors, and the notary,
all the vultures of civilisation, had beaten a retreat before
the patriarchal benevolence of the fisherman. Even the priest had
capitulated.

On the morrow of the Feast of the Assumption, Solomon was sitting, as
his habit was, on a stone bench in front of his house, his legs crossed
and his arms carelessly stretched out. At the first glance you would
have taken him for sixty at the outside, though he was really over
eighty. He had all his teeth, which were as white as pearls, and showed
them proudly. His brow, calm and restful beneath its crown of abundant
white hair, was as firm and polished as marble; not a wrinkle ruffled
the corner of his eye, and the gem-like lustre of his blue orbs revealed
a freshness of soul and an eternal youth such as fable grants to the
sea-gods. He displayed his bare arms and muscular neck with an old
man's vanity. Never had a gloomy idea, an evil prepossession, or a keen
remorse, arisen to disturb his long and peaceful life. He had never seen
a tear flow near him without hurrying to wipe it; poor though he was,
he had succeeded in pouring out benefits that all the kings of the earth
could not have bought with their gold; ignorant though he was, he had
spoken to his fellows the only language th