"And the bath, Bäader?"
"Does monsieur expect to bathe at ze night?" inquired Bäader with a lifting of his eyebrows, his face expressing a certain alarm for my safety.
"No, certainly not; but to-morrow, when I get up."
"Ah, to-morrow!" with a sigh of relief. "I do assure you, monsieur, zat it will be complete. At ze moment of ze déflexion of monsieur le gouverneur zare was not ze time. Of course it is imposseeble in Cancale to have ze grand bain of Paris, but then zare is still something,—a bath quite spécial, simple, and of ze people. Remember, monsieur, it is Bäader."
And so, with a cheery "Bon soir" from madame, and a profound bow from Bäader, I fell asleep.
The next morning I was awakened by a rumbling in the lower hold, as if the cargo was being shifted. Then came a noise like the moving of heavy barrels on the upper deck forward of the companionway. The next instant my door was burst open, and in stalked two brawny, big-armed fish-girls, yarn-stockinged to their knees, and with white sabots and caps. They were trundling the lower half of a huge hogshead.
"Pour le bain, monsieur," they both called out, bursting into laughter, as they rolled the mammoth tub behind my bed, grounded it with a revolving whirl, as a juggler would spin a plate, and disappeared, slamming the door behind them, their merriment growing fainter as they dropped down the companionway.
I peered over the head-board, and discovered the larger half of an enormous storage-barrel used for packing fish, with fresh saw-marks indenting its upper rim. Then I shouted for Bäader.
Before anybody answered, there came another onslaught, and in burst the same girls, carrying a great iron beach-kettle filled with water. This, with renewed fits of laughter, they dashed into the tub, and in a flash were off again, their wooden sabots clattering down the steps.
There was no mistaking the indications; Bäader's bath had arrived.