antique furniture of
my predecessor. I said to myself, 'Yes, I shall buy the furniture for
five hundred francs, and then, later I shall sell to a wealthy amateur
for one thousand francs, perhaps in a year or two.' Twenty-five years
ago, and I have it yet. And now it creaks and creaks and snaps in the
night. We all creak and creak thus as we grow old; ah, you should hear
my wardrobes. 'Elles cassent les dos,' and I lie in my warm bed in the
winter nights and listen to my antiques groan and complain. Poor old
things, they belonged to the 'Empire' Period; no wonder they groan.

[Illustration: The Fish Market: Dixmude]

"And when my friend the notaire comes to play chess with me, you should
see him eye my antiques, ah, so covetously; I see him, but I never let
on. Such a collection of antiques as we all are, M'sieur." Then he
became serious, and lifting his cane he pointed to a gravestone at one
side, "My old servant lies there, M'sieur; we are all old here now, but
still we do not die. Alas! we never die. There is plenty of room here
for us, but we die hard. See, myotis, heliotrope, hare bells, and
mignonette, a bed of perfume, and there lies my old servant. A restless
old soul she was, and she took such a long time to die. She was
eighty-five when she finally made up her mind."

I had a cup of wine with the old man in his small _salle a manger_. His
house was indeed a mine of wealth for the antiquary and collector, more
like a shop than a house. I lingered with him for nearly an hour,
telling him of the great world lying beyond Dixmude, of London and
Paris, and of New York and some of its wonders, of which I fancied he
was rather sceptical. And then I came away, after shaking hands with him
at his doorstep in the dim alley-way, with the bar of golden sunlight
shining at the entrance to the Grand' Place and the noise of the rooks
cawing on the roof.

"_Au revoir_, M'sieur le Peintre, _et bon voyage_, and remember, 'Ask,
and it shall be given, seek and you shall find,'" and with these cryptic
words, he stood with uplifted hands, a smile irradiating his fine
ascetic face glowing like that of a saint. Behind the faded black of his
old _soutane_ I could see his treasures of blue china and ancient
cabinets, and a chance light illumined a mirror behind his head, and
aureoled him like unto one of the saints behind the great "Jube," and
thus I left him.

And now Dixmude is in formless heaps of ashes and burnt timbers. Hardly