Page:Stevenson - An Inland Voyage (1878).djvu/119

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The Sambre and Oise Canal.
97

were already made. It was plainly not the first time that he had thus beautified his cabin in imagination; and when next he makes a hit, I should expect to see the writing-table in the middle.

Madame had three birds in a cage. They were no great thing, she explained. Fine birds were so dear. They had sought to get a Hollandais last winter in Rouen (Rouen? thought I; and is this whole mansion, with its dogs and birds and smoking chimneys, so far a traveller as that? and as homely an object among the cliffs and orchards of the Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?)—they had sought to get a Hollandais last winter in Rouen; but these cost fifteen francs a-piece—picture it—fifteen francs!

"Pour un tout petit oiseau—For quite a little bird," added the husband.

As I continued to admire, the apologetics