on board, one after the other, with his teeth, and carry them along
the deck. Nobody gave him the opportunity, but I dare say he could
have done it; for he was a gallant, noble figure of a man, even in
the Cappuccino dress, which is the ugliest and most ungainly that
can well be.

All this had given great delight to the loquacious Frenchman, who
gradually patronised the Friar very much, and seemed to commiserate
him as one who might have been born a Frenchman himself, but for an
unfortunate destiny. Although his patronage was such as a mouse
might bestow upon a lion, he had a vast opinion of its
condescension; and in the warmth of that sentiment, occasionally
rose on tiptoe, to slap the Friar on the back.

When the baskets arrived: it being then too late for Mass: the
Friar went to work bravely: eating prodigiously of the cold meat
and bread, drinking deep draughts of the wine, smoking cigars,
taking snuff, sustaining an uninterrupted conversation with all
hands, and occasionally running to the boat's side and hailing
somebody on shore with the intelligence that we MUST be got out of
this quarantine somehow or other, as he had to take part in a great
religious procession in the afternoon. After this, he would come
back, laughing lustily from pure good humour: while the Frenchman
wrinkled his small face into ten thousand creases, and said how
droll it was, and what a brave boy was that Friar! At length the
heat of the sun without, and the wine within, made the Frenchman
sleepy. So, in the noontide of his patronage of his gigantic
protege, he lay down among the wool, and began to snore.

It was four o'clock before we were released; and the Frenchman,