A traveller who had left by the last
train had good-naturedly appropriated it to his own use and service. It
was that admirable macintosh that has already adorned these pages, with
the cape finished off with fish-hooks for carrying old china, brown
paper parcels and headless images; and as the invention was not yet
patented, the loss was serious. H.C. lamented openly.
"I only hope," he said, "that the man who has taken it will put it on
inside out, and that all the fish-hooks will stick into him." The most
revengeful saying his gentle mind had ever uttered.
"C'est encore le chat!" screamed Catherine, who was leaning out of a
first-floor window of the salle a manger, quite undaunted by Madame
Hellard's reproving "Voyons, voyons, Catherine!"
But Catherine was loyal, for all her mild sarcasm, and we knew that if
ever the delinquent turned up again he would have a mauvais quart
d'heure at her hands, whilst M. Hellard would certainly enforce
restitution.
Some months later on, at a subsequent visit we paid to Morlaix, we asked
after the fate of the macintosh and its borrower.
"Ah, monsieur," cried our host, sadly, "his punishment was even greater
than we could have wished; two months afterwards the poor fellow died of
la grippe.
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