"Yes; and he was no miser: he gave me ten sous! He drank nothing but sealed wine; they had chickens at all their meals; they had at least eighty francs' worth."
"As much as that, Francois?" "Oh, yes."
"He was very rich, then?"
"Not at all; what he spent was the money which he earned in prison, from whence he had just come."
"He gained all that money in prison?"
"Yes; he said he had seven hundred francs left; that when all was gone, he would do some good job, and if they took him, he didn't care, because he would return to the prison and join his good friends there."
"He wasn't afraid of the prison, then, Francois?".
"Just the contrary; he told Calabash that they were all jolly together; that he never had a better bed or better food than in prison: good meat four times a week, fire all winter, and a good sum when he came out, while there are so many stupid fools of honest workmen who were starving for want of work."
"Did the lame man say that?"
"I heard him; for I was rowing in the boat while he told this to Calabash and the two women, who said it was the same thing in the prison for women; they had just come out."