"Nothing! Only, the man who owns the barge which I desire to purchase has a very beautiful daughter."
Asabri laughed so that for a moment he could not bend over to crank his car. And he cried aloud:
"France, France, I thank thee for thy champagne! And I thank thee, O Italy, for thy merry hearts and thy suggestive climate!... My son, if the bargeman's daughter is to be had for the asking, she is yours. But we must tell the father that until recently you have been a very naughty fellow."
They remained with the second brigand long enough to see him exchange a kiss of betrothal with the bargeman's daughter, while the bargeman busied himself counting the money; and then they returned to see how the sullen brigand and the pretty widow were getting on.
The sullen brigand was cutting dead-wood out of a fig tree with a saw. His face was supremely happy. The widow stood beneath and directed him.
"Closer to the tree, stupid," she said, "else the wound will not heal properly."
The youngest brigand laid a hand that trembled upon Asabri's arm.
"Oh, my father," he said, "these doves are already cooing! And it is very far to the place where I would be."
But Asabri went first to the fig tree, and he said to the widow: