were shouting, calling, laughing, and the master himself was waiting
on them, running from table to table, carrying away empty glasses and
returning them crowned with froth.

When Pierre had found a seat not far from the desk he waited, hoping
that the girl would see him and recognize him. But she passed him
again and again as she went to and fro, pattering her feet under her
skirts with a smart little strut. At last he rapped a coin on the
table, and she hurried up.

"What will you take, sir?"

She did not look at him; her mind was absorbed in calculations of the
liquor she had served.

"Well," said he, "this is a pretty way of greeting a friend."

She fixed her eyes on his face: "Ah!" said she hurriedly. "Is it you?
You are pretty well? But I have not a minute to-day. A bock did you
wish for?"

"Yes, a bock!"

When she brought it he said:

"I have come to say good-by. I am going away."

And she replied indifferently:

"Indeed. Where are you going?"

"To America."

"A very fine country, they say."

And that was all!

Really he was very ill-advised to address her on such a busy day;
there were too many people in the cafe.

Pierre went down to the sea. As he reached the jetty he descried the
_Pearl_; his father and Beausire were coming in. Papagris was pulling,
and the two men, seated in the stern, smoked their pipes with a look
of perfect happiness. As they went past, the doctor said to himself:
"Blessed are the simple-minded!" And he sat down on one of the benches
on the breakwater, to try to lull himself in animal drowsiness.

When he went home in the evening his mother said, without daring to
lift her eyes to his face:

"You will want a heap of things to take with you. I have ordered your
underlinen, and I went into the tailor shop about cloth clothes; but
is there nothing else you need--things which I, perhaps, know nothing
about?"

His lips parted to say, "No, nothing." But he reflected that he must
accept the means of getting a decent outfit, and he replied in a very
calm voice: "I hardly know myself, yet. I will make inquiries at the
office."

He inquired, and they gave him a list of indispensable necessaries.
His mother, as she took it from his hand, looked up at him for the
first time for very long, and in the depths of her eyes there was the
humble expression, gentle, sad, and beseeching, of a dog that has been
beaten and begs forgiveness.

On the 1st of October the _Lorraine_ fro