Eight o'clock P.M.--I found Father Chaufour at a table lighted by a
little smoky lamp, without a fire, although it is already cold, and
making large pasteboard boxes; he was humming a popular song in a low
tone. I had hardly entered the room when he uttered an exclamation of
surprise and pleasure.

"Eh! is it you, neighbor? Come in, then! I did not think you got up so
early, so I put a damper on my music; I was afraid of waking you."

Excellent man! while I was sending him to the devil he was putting
himself out of his way for me!

This thought touched me, and I paid my compliments on his having become
my neighbor with a warmth which opened his heart.

"Faith! you seem to me to have the look of a good Christian," said he in
a voice of soldierlike cordiality, and shaking me by the hand. "I do not
like those people who look on a landing-place as a frontier line, and
treat their neighbors as if they were Cossacks. When men snuff the same
air, and speak the same lingo, they are not meant to turn their backs to
each other. Sit down there, neighbor; I don't mean to order you; only
take care of the stool; it has but three legs, and we must put good-will
in place of the fourth."

"It seems that that is a treasure which there is no want of here," I
observed.

"Good-will!" repeated Chaufour; "that is all my mother left me, and I
take it no son has received a better inheritance. Therefore they used to