Part 19 (1/2)

”_Eh ben!_ Su-Tum-Tum,” he replied.

”Where had you drifted? To the Corean coast?”

”_Mais non_,” he retorted, annoyed at my dullness to comprehend. ”We were saved--_comprenez-vous?_--for there, to starboard, lay Su-Tum-Tum as plain as a sheep's nose.”

”England? Impossible!” I returned.

”_Mais parfaitement!_” he declared, with a hopeless gesture.

”_Su-Tum-Tum_,” he reiterated slowly for my benefit.

”Never heard of it,” I replied.

The next instant he was out of his chair, and fumbling in a drawer of the table extracted a warped atlas, reseated himself, and began to turn the pages.

”_Eh, voila!_” he cried as his forefinger stopped under a word along the English coast. ”That's Su-Tum-Tum plain enough, isn't it?”

”Ah! Southampton!” I exclaimed. ”Of course--plain as day.”

”Ah!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the mayor, leaning back in his chair with a broad smile of satisfaction. ”You see, I was right, Su-Tum-Tum. _Eh ben!_ Do you know,” he said gently as I left him, ”when you first came to Pont du Sable there were times then, my poor friend, when I could not understand a word you said in French.”

Then, as if a sudden thought had struck him, he called me back as he closed the gate.

”Are those gipsies still camped outside your wall?” he inquired, suddenly a.s.suming the dignity of his office. ”_Bon Dieu!_ They are a bad lot, those vagabonds! If I don't tell them to be off you won't have a duck or a chicken left.”

”Let them stay,” I pleaded, ”they do no harm. Besides, I like to see the light of their camp-fire at night scurrying over my wall.”

”How many are there?” inquired his excellency.

”Seven or eight, not counting the dogs chained under the wagons,” I confessed reluctantly, fearing the hand of the law, for I have a fondness for gipsies. ”But you need not worry about them. They won't steal from me. Their wagons are clean inside and out.”

”_Ah, mais!_” sighed the mayor. ”It's just like you. You spoil your cat, you spoil your dog, and now you're spoiling these rascals by giving them a snug berth. Have they their papers of ident.i.ty?”

”Yes,” I called back, ”the chief showed them to me when he asked permission to camp.”

”Of course,” laughed the mayor. ”You'll never catch them without them--signed by officials we never can trace.”

He waved me a cheery _au revoir_ and returned to the well of the groaning windla.s.s while I continued on my way through the village.

Outside the squat stone houses, nets were drying in the sun. Save for the occasional rattle of a pa.s.sing cart, the village was silent, for these fisher-folk go barefooted. Presently I reached the public square, where nothing ever happens, and, turning an iron handle, entered Pont du Sable's only store. A box of a place, smelling of dried herring, kerosene, and cheese; and stocked with the plain necessities--almost everything, from lard, tea, and big nails to soap, tarpaulins, and applejack. The night's catch of mackerel had been good, and the small room with its zinc bar was noisy with fisher-folk--wiry fishermen with legs and chests as hard as iron; slim brown fisher girls as hardy as the men, capricious, independent and saucy; a race of blonds for the most part, with the temperament of brunettes. Old women grown gray and leathery from fighting the sea, and old men too feeble to go--one of these hung himself last winter because of this.

It was here, too, I found Marianne, dripping wet, in her tarpaulins.

”What luck?” I asked her as I helped myself to a package of cigarettes from a pigeonhole and laid the payment thereof on the counter.

”_Eh ben!_” she laughed. ”We can't complain. If the good G.o.d would send us such fis.h.i.+ng every night we should eat well enough.”

She strode through the group to the counter to thrust out an empty bottle.

”Eight sous of the best,” she demanded briskly of the mild-eyed grocer.

”My man's as wet as a rat--he needs some fire in him and he'll feel as fit as a marquis.”