“Ah, that is all according. The tour of the isles, for example?”

“Yes, but they are a long way off, those isles, are they not?”

“Not very; four leagues.”

“Four leagues! That is a voyage.”

The fishermen laughed in M. Agnan’s face.

“Hear me, then,” said the latter with an air of simple stupidity; “four leagues off you lose sight of land, do you not?”

“Why, not always.”

“Ah, it is a long way — too long, or else I would have asked you to take me aboard, and to show me what I have never seen.”