As the wind was gaining in industry, the Commodore permitted an overlong delay, to be improved physically, and while this was being enjoyed there hove in view a craft peculiar to French-American waters, but which would not be tolerated anywhere else. It was an immense barge, considerably more awkward than a canal boat, and moved by two great square sails, each with a mast to itself. The breeze which bellied the canvas of this monster would have driven a canoe along at the rate of twelve miles an hour, but the barge proceeded so leisurely that a maiden sauntering along the road on the bank chatted with the pilot for a mile or two without quickening her pace. Having both his vessel and his sweetheart upon his mind, it is not strange that the pilot did not perceive the four foreign craft beached a-starboard; the maiden, however, with a woman's eye for color, caught sight of the club signal which the Cook always flew at his masthead, instead of upon the mainpeak, with which it would have been furled when sail was taken in. Her figure, which had afforded so gracious a relief against the blue sky behind her, disappeared with the unscientific effect of seeming to leave a cloud behind, and as the unintentional listeners devoutly thanked heaven for such knowledge of the French tongue as had enabled them to overhear the artless affectionate dialogue which had been going on, they saw, gazing at the pilot, how dark the Acadian complexion can be when displayed in the face of a lover newly made lonesome. Gladly would the swain himself have retired from sight, but the helm of his boat was obedient only under greatest effort, so he strained sullenly at the tiller, a figure at first amusing but soon pathetic. The sentiment which keeps the world from growing old was not a stranger to the canoeists, so the Purser murmured a bit from Jasmin and caught a hint which for years he had tried to take from Jules Breton; the Cook wished there might be a joint of chicken left to offer the poor fellow; the Commodore hailed him heartily, and offered to carry him out a taste of brandy in token of a professional and sentimental sympathy, and the Vice sent him a good cigar; and it came to pass that five minutes later the ere-while lovelorn helmsman was trolling a song of war and slaughter as merrily as if love and Evangeline had never existed. "Ah," sighed the Commodore, "the days are gone when rum and true religion were the principal supports of fallen humanity. Smoke seems to answer that fellow's purpose as well as religion." "If my memory serves me rightly," said the Vice, as if in profound reflection, "a great deal of the religion I have heard preached, was well informed with a something from which smoke is a natural deduction." "That," said the Purser, "is because in the universal fitness of things a man recalls most readily that which he most urgently needs. No one can wonder that a politician--" "Language unparliamentary," interrupted the Vice, with a wry face.