"And you," said Peyrol, "you have no land then?"
The man took his time to answer. "I have a boat."
Peyrol became interested when the man explained that his boat was on the salt pond, the large, deserted and opaque sheet of water lying dead between the two great bays of the living sea. Peyrol wondered aloud why any one should want a boat on it.
"There is fish there," said the man.
"And is the boat all your worldly goods?" asked Peyrol.
The flies buzzed, the mule hung its head, moving its ears and flapping its thin tail languidly.
"I have a sort of hut down by the lagoon and a net or two," the man confessed, as it were. Peyrol, looking down, completed the list by saying: "And this dog."
The man again took his time to say:
"He is company."
Peyrol sat as serious as a judge. "You haven't much to make a living of," he delivered himself at last. "However! . . . Is there no inn, café, or some place where one could put up for a day? I have heard up inland that there was some such place."