As he had never seen an otter, even in a museum, he was delighted with
this episode of his early walk. "Come," said he, quite touched when
the old man walked away without asking him for a compensation, "you
say you are a famous otter catcher. If you are sure there is an otter
down there--"

From the other side of the water Mouche pointed his finger to certain
air-bubbles coming up from the bottom of the Avonne and bursting on
its surface.

"It has come back!" said Pere Fourchon; "don't you see it breathe, the
beggar? How do you suppose they manage to breathe at the bottom of the
water? Ah, the creature's so clever it laughs at science."

"Well," said Blondet, who supposed the last word was a jest of the
peasantry in general rather than of this peasant in particular, "wait
and catch the otter."

"And what are we to do about our day's work, Mouche and I?"

"What is your day worth?"

"For the pair of us, my apprentice and me?--Five francs," said the old
man, looking Blondet in the eye with a hesitation which betrayed an
enormous overcharge.

The journalist took ten francs from his pocket, saying, "There's ten,
and I'll give you ten more for the otter."

"And it won't cost you dear if there's white on its back; for the