the cause of his evident penury.

"With great hardships, and always poorly," he replied. "Fishing on the
coast, when one hasn't a boat or deep-sea nets, nothing but pole and
line, is a very uncertain business. You see we have to wait for the
fish, or the shell-fish; whereas a real fisherman puts out to sea for
them. It is so hard to earn a living this way that I'm the only man in
these parts who fishes along-shore. I spend whole days without getting
anything. To catch a crab, it must go to sleep, as this one did, and a
lobster must be silly enough to stay among the rocks. Sometimes after
a high tide the mussels come in and I grab them."

"Well, taking one day with another, how much do you earn?"

"Oh, eleven or twelve sous. I could do with that if I were alone; but
I have got my old father to keep, and he can't do anything, the good
man, because he's blind."

At these words, said simply, Pauline and I looked at each other
without a word; then I asked,--

"Haven't you a wife, or some good friend?"

He cast upon us one of the most lamentable glances that I ever saw as
he answered,--

"If I had a wife I must abandon my father; I could not feed him and a
wife and children too."

"Well, my poor lad, why don't you try to earn more at the salt