“Non d’un chien! We don’t take Italian paper!” cried the aubergiste, with great vehemence. “Ça ne vaut rien du tout.”
I visited several other inns and such shops as were still open, but the note I could not pass, even at a discount. I found myself in the paradoxical situation of being penniless with money in my pocket. A chill wind blew in from the Mediterranean. I sat down on a step out of range of the village lights, but soon fell to shivering and rose to wander on. Down on the sandy beach in front of the principal street were drawn up several rowboats. I peered from behind the nearest building until the two officers who patroled the water front had reached the far end of their beats and, scurrying down to the beach, dropped into the shadow of the first skiff. Most of the boats were tightly covered with boards or tarpaulins but, creeping on hands and knees from one to another, I found two with coverings that had openings in them large enough to admit a lean and hungry mortal. In the first into which I thrust my head I made out the forms of two gamins, sound asleep. The second was uninhabited. I squirmed my way in and found inside a bed of dirty, but warm reed mats.
Scarcely had I fallen asleep when I was awakened by the chatter of hoarse voices and looked up to see an angry face peering at me through the opening.
“Eh! Dis donc, toi!” growled the possessor of the face. “Qu’est-ce que tu fais dans mon lit?”
“Ton lit,” I answered, sleepily. “If I got here first, how does it come to be your bed?”
“Hein!” snarled the face. “Ç ’a été mon coucher ces trois mois. Bouge toi de là, sinon—” and he drew a finger suggestively across his throat.
At this display of emotion one of his companions outside pulled the speaker away and thrust his own face in at the opening.
“Mais, dis donc, mon vieux!” he murmured. “You don’t mean to rob three poor devils of the bed they have slept in for weeks, quoi?”
I admitted the injustice of such action and crawled out to join the three crouching figures in the shadow of the craft.
“Where do you come from?” whispered one of them.