The children laughed.

'It's comical enough now,' said Pharaoh. 'But I didn't laugh then. Says Talleyrand after a minute, "I am a bad accountant and I have several calculations on hand at present. Shall we say twice the cost of the cargo?"

'Say? I couldn't say a word. I sat choking and nodding like a China image while he wrote an order to his secretary to pay me, I won't say how much, becuuse you wouldn't believe it.

""Oh! Bless you, abbé! God bless you!" I got it out at last.

"Yes," he says, “I am a priest in spite of myself, but they call me bishop now. Take this for my episcopal blessing," and he hands me the paper.

666

""He stole all that money from me," says Boney over my shoulder. "A Bank of France is another of the things we must make. Are you mad?" he shouts at Talleyrand.

666

"Quite," says Talleyrand, getting up. “But be calm; the disease will never attack you. It is called gratitude. This gentleman found me in the street and fed me when I was hungry."

666

""I see; and he has made a fine scene of it and you have paid him, I suppose. Meantime, France waits." ""Oh! poor France!" says Talleyrand. “Goodbye, Candide," he says to me. "By the way," he says, "have you yet got Red Jacket's permission to tell me what the President said to his Cabinet after Monsieur Genêt rode away?"

'I couldn't speak, I could only shake my head, and Boney - so impatient he was to go on with his doings he ran at me and fair pushed me out of the room. And that was all there was to it.'

Pharaoh stood up and slid his fiddle into one of his big skirt-pockets as though it were a dead hare.

'Oh! but we want to know lots and lots more,' said Dan. 'How you got home — and what old Maingon said on the barge and wasn't your cousin surprised when he had to give back the Berthe Aurette, and 'Tell us more about Toby!' cried Una.

'Yes, and Red Jacket,' said Dan.

'Won't you tell us any more?' they both pleaded. Puck kicked the oak branch on the fire, till it sent up a column of smoke that made them sneeze. When they had finished, the Shaw was empty except for old Hobden stamping through the larches.

"They gipsies have took two,' he said. 'My black pullet and my liddle gingy-speckled cockrel.'

'I thought so,' said Dan, picking up one tail-feather the old woman had overlooked.

'Which way did they go? Which way did the runagates go?' said Hobden.

'Hobby!' said Una. 'Would you like it if we told Keeper Ridley all your goings and comings?'

'POOR HONEST MEN'

YOUR jar of Virginny

Will cost you a guinea

Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten; But light your churchwarden

And judge it according

When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.

From the Capes of the Delaware,

As you are well aware,

We sail with tobacco for England - but then,

Our own British cruisers,

They watch us come through, sirs,

And they press half a score of us poor honest men.

Or if by quick sailing

(Thick weather prevailing)

We leave them behind (as we do now and then)

Each frigate we run from,

Which is often destruction to poor honest men!

Broadsides the Atlantic

We tumble short-handed,

With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend,

And off the Azores,

Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs

Are waiting to terrify poor honest men.

Napoleon's embargo

Is laid on all cargo

Which comfort or aid to King George may intend;

And since roll, twist and leaf,

Of all comforts is chief,

They try for to steal it from poor honest men!

With no heart for fight,

We take refuge in flight

But fire as we run, our retreat to defend,

Until our stern-chasers

Cut up her fore-braces,

And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men!

Twix' the Forties and Fifties,

South-eastward the drift is,

And so, when we think we are making Land's End, Alas, it is Ushant

With half the King's Navy,

Blockading French ports against poor honest men!

But they may not quit station

(Which is our salvation)

So swiftly we stand to the Nor'ard again;

And finding the tail of

A homeward bound convoy,

We slip past the Scillies like poor honest men.

Twix' the Lizard and Dover,

We hand our stuff over,

Though I may not inform how we do it, nor when;

But a light on each quarter

Low down on the water

Is well understanded by poor honest men!

Even then we have dangers,

From meddlesome strangers,

Who spy on our business and are not content

To take a smooth answer,

Except with a handspike.

And they say they are murdered by poor honest men!

To be drowned or be shot

Is our natural lot,

Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end
After all our great pains

For to dangle in chains

As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men?