“Only-One-Eye told us what was the matter with her, one Saturday evening.  We had just sat down to table in the little dining-room which our eating house keeper, Barbichon, reserved for us at his inn, and, the soup being finished, we were waiting for the fried fish, when our friend, who also appeared thoughtful, took Fly’s hand and said:  ’My dear comrades, I have a very grave communication to make to you, and one that may, perhaps, give rise to a prolonged discussion, but we shall have to argue between the courses.  Poor Fly has announced a piece of disastrous news to me, and at the same time has asked me to tell it to you:  She is pregnant, and I will only add two words.  This is not the moment to abandon her, and it is forbidden to try and find out who is the father.’[2]

[Footnote 2:  La recherche de la paternite est interdite. A celebrated clause in the Code Napoleon, whereby a man cannot be made chargeable for a bastard.—­TRANSLATOR.]

“At first we were stupefied, and felt as if some disaster had befallen us, and we looked at each other with the longing to accuse some one, but whom?  Oh!  Which of us?  I have never felt as I did at that moment, the perfidy of that cruel joke of nature, which never allows a man to know for certainty whether he is the father of his child.  Then, however, by degrees a sort of feeling of consolation came over us and gave us comfort, which sprung from a confused idea of joint responsibility.

“Tomahawk, who spoke but little, formulated a beginning of reassurance by these words:  ’Well, so much the worse, by Jove:  Union is Strength, however.’  At that moment a scullion brought in the fried gudgeons, but they did not fall to on them like they generally did, for they all had the same trouble on their mind, and Only-One-Eye continued:  ’Under these circumstances she has had the delicacy to confess everything to me.  My friends, we are all equally guilty, so let us shake hands and adopt the child.’

“That was decided upon unanimously; they raised their hands to the dish of fried fish and swore:  ‘We will adopt it.’  Then, when she was thus suddenly saved, and delivered from the weight of the terrible anxiety that had been tormenting her for a month, this pretty, crazy, poor child of love, Fly, exclaimed:  ’Oh! my friends! my friends!  You have kind, good hearts ... good hearts....  Thank you, all of you!’ And she shed tears for the first time before us all.

“From that time we spoke in the boat about the child, as if it were already born, and each of us took an exaggerated interest, because of our share in the matter, in the slow and regular development of our mistress’s waist, and we stopped rowing in order to say:  ‘Fly?’ ’Here I am,’ she replied.  ‘Boy or girl?’ ‘Boy.’  ’What will he be when he grows up?’