every one knows, ply between New Orleans and Central and South
American ports, doing the major part of the fruit trade; and many
were the baskets of forgotten fruit that Mr. Baptiste took away
with him unmolested. Sometimes, you know, bananas and mangoes
and oranges and citrons will half spoil, particularly if it has
been a bad voyage over the stormy Gulf, and the officers of the
ships will give away stacks of fruit, too good to go into the
river, too bad to sell to the fruit-dealers.

You could see Mr. Baptiste trudging up the street with his quaint
one-sided walk, bearing his dilapidated basket on one shoulder, a
nondescript head-cover pulled over his eyes, whistling cheerily.
Then he would slip in at the back door of one of his clients with
a brisk,--

"Ah, bonjour, madame. Now here ees jus' a lil' bit fruit, some
bananas. Perhaps madame would cook some for Mr. Baptiste?"

And madame, who understood and knew his ways, would fry him some
of the bananas, and set it before him, a tempting dish, with a
bit of madame's bread and meat and coffee thrown in for
lagniappe; and Mr. Baptiste would depart, filled and contented,
leaving the load of fruit behind as madame's pay. Thus did he
eat, and his clients were many, and never too tired or too cross
to cook his meals and get their pay in baskets of fruit.

One day he slipped in at Madame Garcia's kitchen door with such a
woe-begone air, and slid a small sack of nearly ripe plantains on
the table with such a misery-laden sigh, that madame, who was fat
and excitable, threw up both hands and cried out: