EXERCISE X

(Chagrin d'un vieux forçat, pp. 423-4. )

A. I. Did Yves not go to conduct the convicts? 2. The convict was seventy at least. 3. Whom did you take away with you? 4. Why did you enter into conversation with him ? 5. It was to pass the time. 6. They did nob have bad

faces. 7. Does he wear spectacles ? 8. People did not want anything to do with me. 9. He had stolen a carter's whip. 10. He would not consent to listen to Yves. 11. The cage and the sparrow were his most precious possessions. 12. He had tamed the sparrow and it knew his voice. 13. If he has to build a cage fit for the journey, he will procure wood. 14. He will paint it, so that it may be pretty. 15. Do you remember the very words of Yvesi 16. He will eat coarse bread like any other bird. 17. They embarked for the journey. 18. Will that be of any use to him? 19. You must take it with you. 20. Big tears run down his cheeks. 21. The cage door opened. 22. Was the bird frightened? 23. The poor bird struggled and died. 24. It was carried away in the wake of the ship. 25. He applied to me. 26. That would never occur to him. 27. We staid silent in our place. 28. Did you not feel dreadfully alone? 29. Tears dimmed their sight. 30. Did they laugh to see the old man weep? 31. Will you not keep the cage? 32. This cage was made for the little bird. 33. He wished to leave me this legacy. 34. We did not wish to pain the old man. 35. He seemed to despise the thing.

B. The transport-ship was about to sail for New Caledonia, and Yves was taking some convicts to it with his gunboat. Amongst the convicts was an old man who had a sparrow in a cage. He had been arrested for the fifth or sixth time. He had to eat and he had no trade, and so [par conséquent) he had stolen a bag of potatoes. He said they might have let him die in France instead of sending him away off there. He had obtained permission to take away his sparrow. And then h- had got wood and old wire and green paint, and he had made a cage for the sparrow. The sparrow had only the dark-coloured bread of the prisons to eat, but he seemed happy, and hopped about like any other bird. But during the passage to the transport-ship the bird flew away and fell into the sea. It was a moment of sorrow for the convict. He saw his bird struggle and die, and could do nothing for it. The first impulse was to ask for help, but the impulse was arrested by the consciousness of his personal degradation. Nobody would have pity on his sparrow ; nobody would listen to his request. Who would stop the ship to pick up again a

convict's drowning bird ! Then he watched the poor little body grow more distant on the sea foam, and he felt himself very much alone. The bird was no longer in the cage, and so he handed it to Yves, who had listened to his story. And Yves, not wishing to seem to despise the thing which had cost the old convict so much work, accepted the gift.