"I am too aged, it would seem, to comprehend these youthful spirits,"said the aged sailor to himself as he put his mule to a canter; "orperhaps youthful people are not what they used to be. But what ails myniece? Now she is walking at a leg-pace like a gendarme on patrol inthe Paris streets. 0ne might fancy she wanted to outflank that worthyman, whom looks to me like an author dreaming over his poetry, for hehas, I think, a notebook inside his arm. My word, I am a great simpleton!Is not that the somewhat youthful man we are in search of!"