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VERY one in Fécamp was acquainted with the story of Mother Patin. There could be no doubt that Mother Patin had not had a happy life of it with her man, for during his lifetime her man had used to thrash her as they thrash the wheat on the barn-floor.

He was captain of a fishing-boat, and had married her, long ago, although she was poor, for her good looks.

Patin, a good sailor, but very much of a brute, was a frequenter of Father Auban's pothouse, where, on ordinary days, he would drink four or five small glasses of tanglefoot, and on days when the luck was good out at sea eight or ten, and even more, according to his gayety of heart, as he used to say. The tanglefoot was served to the customers by Father Auban's daughter, a comely brunette of pleasing aspect, who attracted custom to the house by dint of her good looks alone, for she had never been the subject of scandal.

At the commencement of Patin's visits to the