nd their asylum if they were
helpless, not only Fidele, but a number of other Frenchmen of that
neighborhood, began to come to me with their small affairs. I was the
_avocat_ who "speak French." I am afraid that they were surprised at my
"French" when they heard it.

There was a willow-worker from the Pas-de-Calais, a deformed man,
walking high and low, and always wanting to rise from his chair and lay
his hand upon my shoulder, as he talked, who came to consult me about
the recovery of a hundred francs which he had advanced at _Anvers_ to
a Belgian tailor upon the pledge of a sewing-machine, on consideration
that the tailor, who was to come in a different steamer, should take
charge of the willow-worker's dog on the voyage: the willow-worker had a
wife and six children to look after. This was a lofty contest; but I
had time then. I found a little amusement in the case, and I had the
advantage of two or three hours in all of practical French conversation
with men thoroughly in earnest. Finally, I had the satisfaction of
settling their dispute, and so keeping them from a quarrel.

Then there was a French cook, out of a job, who wanted me to find him a
place. He was gathering mushrooms, meanwhile, for the hotels. One day he
surprised me by coming into my office in a white linen cap, brandishing
in his hand a long, gleaming knife. He only desired, however, to tell
me that he had found a place at one of the clubs, and to show, in his
pride, the shining blade which he had just bought as his equipment.

But the man who impressed me most, after Sorel, was Carron. He first
appeared as the friend of the cook,--whom he introduced to me, with many
flourishes and compliments, although he was an utter stranger himself.
Carron was a well-built and rather handsome man, of medium height,
and was then perhaps fifty years of age. He had a remarkably bright,
intelligent face, curling brown hair, and a full, wavy brown beard. He
kept a rival boarding-house, not far from Sorel's, in a gabled wooden
house two hundred years old, which was anciently the home of an eminent
Puritan divine. In the oak-panelled room where the theologian wrote his
famous tract upon the Carpenter who Profanely undertook to Dispense the
Word in the way of Public Ministration, and was Divinely struck Dumb in
consequence, Carron now sold beer from a keg.

It was plain at a glance that his present was not of a piece with his
past I could not place him. His manners we