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134 "One day, when they were fixed so, I said to them: 'Do you know, my little friends, that we make quite a family picture as we now are? I don't wish to ask you any questions, but you probably have not any more money than you need, and you are very delicate, both of you, to dig and work, as the convicts at Cayenne do. It's a wretched country, I can tell you, from the bottom of my heart; but as for me, who am already an old wolf's skin dried in the sun, I could live there like a lord. If you have, as I rather fancy you have (without wishing to catechise you), ever so little regard for me, I would willingly leave my old brig, which is at best but an old wooden shoe, and establish myself there with you, if you liked it. I have no more family than a dog, and I am tired of it. You would make a nice little company for me. I could help you to many things, and I have got together, honestly enough, quite a snug little affair in the contraband way, on which we might live, and which I would leave to you, when I should come to kick the bucket,—to speak politely.'

"They looked, at each other with quite a bewildered air, as if they did not think I spoke the truth; and then the little one ran, as she always did, and threw herself on the neck of the other, and sat upon his knees all crimson and weeping. He pressed her very closely in his arms, and I saw tears in his eyes too. He gave me his hand,