My friend, a sadly literal person, objected. It couldn’t be like that, among the Esquimaux, in their igloos. And I had all I could do to prove that among the Esquimaux, in their igloos, it was not only just like that, but more so. On the return boat for Paris, we were still arguing the question. The beady-eyed little grandmother had already helped to remove the life-preserving hat from the Petitpot baby. She continued to guard her basket, which now held only an aroma, and, please God, the _carcasse_ for the morrow’s soup. Black-aproned Pierre, with an unrelenting grip upon his Atlas of the World, laid his sleepy, knowledge-burdened head against her shoulder. Mme. Petitpot whispered over that head into the grandmother’s ear, and the grandmother nodded and smiled. The two were agreed that it was truly a miracle; in all that fine company, the boy was the only one who knew. Surely there was a future for this child, already so well instructed! And with what agreeable courtesy he had said it, “_Madame, c’est une taupe!_” The women smiled, yet there was something sad and lofty in their smiling. For they knew that they were guarding between them a very precious vessel, and they prayed for strength equal to the honored task. The evening breeze freshened sweetly; and in case that fabled Gallic monster, a _courant d’air_, might come stalking through the boat, the grandmother spread a fold of her voluminous black skirt over Pierre’s bare knees. THEIR APPOINTED ROUNDS I They were destined to dislike each other on sight, those two whose appointed rounds, unexpectedly interlacing, had brought them together under the ancient pines keeping watch over the grave of a Revolutionary soldier. The man disliked the boy, because he himself had at that moment a loathing and a horror of himself and his probable fate, and the lad’s pliant figure vividly recalled to him what his own had been, in days long past. The boy’s reason for disliking the man was far more obscure, but no less potent.