ou?" he asked turning to Blanquette by his side--I occupied the
opposite corner.

She confessed. A very little. But she had listened to all Monsieur had
said, and if he continued to talk she would not think of going to sleep.
Whereupon she closed her eyes, and when I opened mine I saw that her
head had slipped along the smooth wooden back of the carriage and rested
on Paragot's shoulder. Through sheer kindliness and pity he had put his
arm around her so as to settle her comfortably as she slept. I envied
her.

When she awoke at the first stoppage of the train, she started away from
him with a little gasp.

"O Monsieur! I did not know. You should have told me."

"I am only Pere Paragot," said he. "You must often have had your head
against this mountebank jacket of mine."

She misunderstood him. Her eyes flashed.

"It is the first time in my life--I swear it." She held up her two
forefingers crossed and kissed them. "Pere Paragot! _ah non!_ neither he
nor another. I am an honest girl, though you may not think so."

"My good Blanquette," said he kindly, taking her scarred coarse hand in
his, "you are as honest a girl as ever breathed, and if Pere Paragot
didn't let you put your sleepy little head on his shoulder he must have
been a stonier hearted old curmudgeon than you have given one to
believe."

So he soothed her and explained, while our two fellow passengers, a
wizened old peasant and his wife, regarded them stolidly.

"_Mon Dieu_, it is hot," said Blanquette. "Don't you think so, Asticot?
I wish I had a fan."

"I will make you one out of the paper the fowl is wrapped in," said
Paragot.

Not half a goose, but a cold fowl minus half a wing had been our
supplementary guerdon. Decently enveloped in a sheet of newspaper it lay
on her lap. When he had divested it of its covering, which he proceeded
to twist into a fan, it still lay on her lap, looking astonishingly
naked.

At the next station the old peasant and his wife got out and we had the
compartment to ourselves. Blanquette produced from her pocket a
handkerchief knotted over an enormous lump.

"These are the takings, Monsieur. It looks small; but they changed the
coppers into silver at the restaurant for me."

"It's a fortune," laughed my master.

"It is much," she replied gravely, and undoing the knot she offered him
with both hands the glittering treasure. "I hope you will be a little
generous, Monsieur--I know it was you who gained the _quete_