of pockets, into which the old women and fishermen plunged to drag
forth a net or a knife; also as convenient, if rude, little caverns into
which the village crawled at night, to take its heavy slumber.

The door-step was the drawing-room, and the open street was the club of
this Villerville world.

The door-way, the yard, or the bit of garden tucked in between two high
walls--it was here, under the tent of sky rather than beneath the
stuffy roofs, that the village lived, talked, quarrelled, bargained,
worked, and more or less openly made love.

To the door-step everything was brought that was portable. There was
nothing, from the small boy to the brass kettle, that could not be more
satisfactorily polished off, in full view of one's world, than by one's
self, in seclusion and solitude. Justice, at least, appeared to gain by
this passion for open-air ministration, if one were to judge by the
frequency with which the Villerville boy was laid across the parental
knee. We were repeatedly called upon to coincide, at the very instant
of flagellation, with the verdict pronounced against the youthful
offender.

"_S'il est assez mechant, lui?_ Ah, mesdames, what do you think of one
who goes forth dry, with clean sabots, that I, myself, have washed, and
behold him returned, _apres un tout p'tit quart d'heure_, stinking with
filth? Bah! it's he that will catch it when his father comes home!" And
meanwhile the mother's hand descends, lest justice should cool ere
night.

[Illustration: A VILLERVILLE FISH-WIFE]