"I should think you miss the French cafés and concerts and dancing and all that sort of thing," I remarked.
"No matter for them things," he answered. "Liberty here. Liberty live for this one place."
"'Where there ain't no Ten Commandments,'" I quoted.
"No ten? No one," he cried, shaking one finger in my face excitedly, so as to make the meaning of "one" quite clear.
Just then the steamer sounded her siren.
"The old man's getting in a stew," said the purser, slowly standing up and mopping his face.
The crew stretched themselves, tightened their wisps of cotton, and slowly stood up too.
As M. Jacques led us politely down to the surf-boat again, I heard him quietly singing in an undertone, "Liberté, Liberté, chérie!"
"What part of France do you come from?" I asked.
"From Marseilles, monsieur," he answered, and having helped push off the boat, he stood with raised hat, watching us dive through the breakers. Then he slowly climbed the sand again, and I saw him pass into the gate of his fortified wall.