even when wrong or sadly obvious, because of the glow with which he
declared things this or that--found his situation immediately eased.
Many a hard-up countryman, casting about for a five-dollar bill, could
get it of Jean Jacques by telling him what agreeable thing some important
person had said about him; or by writing to a great newspaper in Montreal
a letter, saying that the next candidate for the provincial legislature
should be M. Jean Jacques Barbille, of St. Saviour's. This never failed
to draw a substantial "bill" from the wad which Jean Jacques always
carried in his pocket-loose, not tied up in a leather roll, as so many
lesser men freighted the burdens of their wealth.

He had changed since the day he left Bordeaux on the Antoine; since he
had first caught the flash of interest in Carmen Dolores' eyes--an
interest roused from his likeness to a conspirator who had been shot for
his country's good. He was no stouter in body, for he was of the kind
that wear away the flesh by much doing and thinking; but there were
occasional streaks of grey in his bushy hair, and his eye roamed less
than it did once. In the days when he first brought Carmen home, his eye
was like a bead of brown light on a swivel. It flickered and flamed; it
saw here, saw there; it twinkled, and it pierced into life's mysteries;
and all the while it was a good eye. Its whites never showed, as it
were. As an animal, his eye showed a nature free from vice. In some
respects he was easy to live with, for he never found fault with what
was given him to eat, or the way the house was managed; and he never
interfered with the "kitchen people," or refused a dollar or ten dollars
to Carmen for finery. In fact, he was in a sense too lavish, for he used
at one time to bring her home presents of silks and clothes and toilet
things and stockings and hats, which were not in accord with her taste,
and only vexed her. Indeed, she resented wearing them, and could hardly
bring herself to thank him for them. At last, however, she induced him