"Come along, Sans-Plume, you are foolish!"
"Captain, let us set the prow larboard and you go and see."
"So be it," replied the captain.
And, followed by his sailor, he left the walk on the right of the boulevard, crossed the pavement, and took the walk on the left.
"Well, captain," said Sans-Plume, in a low voice, "you see this lascar navigates in our waters."
"That is true, we are followed."
"It is not the first time it has happened to me," said Sans-Plume, with a shade of conceit, hiding one-half of his mouth with the back of his hand in order to eject the excess of tobacco juice produced by the mastication of his enormous quid. "One day, in Senegal, Gorée, I was followed a whole league, bowsprit on stern, captain, till I came to a plantation of sugar-cane, and—"
"The devil! that man is surely following us," said the captain, interrupting the indiscreet confidences of the sailor. "That annoys me!"
"Captain, do you wish me to drop my bag and flank this lascar with tobacco, in order to teach him to ply to our windward in spite of us?"