“Well, then, the day after we had landed, M. Farniol, the owner of the French restaurant, offered me a place as waiter. Of course I accepted, and stayed there a year. Now I wait at table at the Hotel de France, kept by M. Roy. You can send for my two masters; they will tell you whether there is any complaint against me.”
“They will certainly be examined. And where do you live?”
“At the Hotel de France, of course, where I am employed.”
The magistrate’s face looked more and more benevolent. He asked next,—
“And that is a good place,—to be waiter at a restaurant or a hotel?”
“Why, yes—pretty good.”
“They pay well; eh?”
“That depends,—sometimes they do; at other times they don’t. When it is the season”—
“That is so everywhere. But let us be accurate. You have been now eighteen months in Saigon; no doubt you have laid up something?”
The man looked troubled and amazed, as if he had suddenly found out that the apparent benevolence of the magistrate had led him upon slippery and dangerous ground. He said evasively,—