human
What's all this for, Joan? Why, we're here for our health.
gpt
If you don't tell me what's in the wind, you'll be sorry. Come, where's the good? I've got as much head as you have, father, and--
human
Mon Dieu! Much more. That's not the question. It was to be a surprise to you.
gpt
Pshaw! You can only have one minute of surprise, and you can have months of fun looking out for a thing. I don't want surprises; I want what you've got--the thing that's kept you good-tempered while we lie here like snails on the rocks.
human
Well, my cricket, if that's the way you feel, here you are. It is a long story, but I will make it short. Once there was a pirate called Brigond, and he brought into a bay on the coast of Labrador a fortune in some kegs--gold, gold! He hid it in a cave, wrapping around it the dead bodies of two men. It is thought that one can never find it so. He hid it, and sailed away. He was captured, and sent to prison in France for twenty years. Then he come back with a crew and another ship, and sailed into the bay, but his ship went down within sight of the place. And so the end of him and all. But wait. There was one man, the mate on the first voyage. He had been put in prison also. He did not get away as soon as Brigond. When he was free, he come to the captain of a ship that I know, the Free-and-Easy, that sails to Havre, and told him the story, asking for passage to Quebec. The captain--Gobal--did not believe it, but said he would bring him over on the next voyage. Gobal come to me and told me all there was to tell. I said that it was a true story, for Pretty Pierre told me once he saw Brigond's ship go down in the bay; but he would not say how, or why, or where. Pierre would not lie in a thing like that, and--
gpt
Why didn't he get the gold himself?