"So much as that, François?"
"Oh, yes!"
"How rich he must be!"
"Not at all. What he spent was money he had gained in prison, from which he had just come."
"Gained all that money in prison?"
"Yes; he said he had seven hundred francs beside, and that, when that was all gone, he should try another good 'job;' and if he were taken, he didn't care, because he should go back to his jolly 'pals in the Stone Jug,' as he said."
"Then he wasn't afraid of prison, François?"
"On the contrary; he told Calabash that they were a party of friends and merrymakers all together; and that he had never had a better bed and better food than when he was in prison. Good meat four times a week, fire all the winter, and a lump of money when he left it; whilst there are fools of honest workmen who are starving with cold and hunger, for want of work."
"Are you sure he said that, François,—the stout lame man?"
"I heard him, for I was rowing him in the punt whilst he told his story to Calabash and the two women, who said that it was the same thing in the female prisons they had just left."