But, now, there is our absent friend.

I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized as partners in his moral errors.

Among another people, reared under wiser care and with better companions, how different might he not have been! How can we speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from that name ?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his speech to English.

"A lady sez to me to-day: 'Pere Jerome, 'ow dat is a dreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! Ain't it ?' 'Ah, madame,' I sez, ''tis a terrible! I 'ope de good God will fo'give me an' you fo' dat!'" Jean Thompson answered quickly: "You should not have let her say that." "_Mais_, fo' w'y ?" "Why, because, if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the more to do what you can to shield his reputation.

You should have said,"-- the attorney changed to French,--"'He is no pirate; he has merely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the republic of Carthagena!'" "_Ah, bah_!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and his brother-in-law, the priest, laughed.
"Why not ?" demanded Thompson.
"Oh!" said the physician, with a shrug, "say id thad way iv you wand." Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else, when Pere Jerome spoke.
"I will tell you what I could have said, I could have said: 'Madame, yes; 'tis a terrible fo' him.