cerely as I envy the noble Huron your loyalty. Do me the honour to sit down while I explain."

'There wasn't another chair, so I sat on the buttonbox.

'He was a clever man. He had got hold of the gossip that the President meant to make a peace treaty with England at any cost. He had found out-from Genet, I reckon who was with the President on the day the two chiefs met him. He'd heard that Genet had had a huff with the President and had ridden off leaving his business at loose ends. What he wanted-what he begged and blustered to know-was just the very words which the President had said to his gentlemen after Genet had left, concerning the peace treaty with England. He put it to me that in helping him to those very words I'd be helping three great countries as well as mankind. The room was as bare as the palm of your hand, but I couldn't laugh.

"I'm sorry," I says, when he wiped his forehead. "As soon as Red Jacket gives permission-"

666

""You don't believe me, then?" he cuts in.

"Not one little, little word, abbe," I says; "except that you mean to be on the winning side. Remember, I've been fiddling to all your old friends for months." 'Well, then, his temper fled him and he called me

names.

""Wait a minute, ci-devant," I says at last. "I am half English and half French, but I am not the half of a man. I will tell thee something the Indian told me. Has thee seen the President?"

666

'Oh yes!" he sneers, "I had letters from the Lord Landsdowne to that estimable old man."

""Then," I says, "thee will understand. The Red

Skin said that when thee has met the President thee will feel in thy heart he is a stronger man than thee." ""Go!" he whispers. "Before I kill thee, go." 'He looked like it. So I left him.'

'Why did he want to know so badly?' said Dan.

'The way I look at it is that if he had known for certain that Washington meant to make the peace treaty with England at any price, he'd ha' left old Fauchet fumbling about in Philadelphia while he went straight back to France and told old Danton-"It's no good your wasting time and hopes on the United States, because she won't fight on our side-that I've proof of!" Then Danton might have been grateful and given Talleyrand a job, because a whole mass of things hang on knowing for sure who's your friend and who's your enemy. Just think of us poor shopkeepers, for instance.'

'Did Red Jacket let you tell, when he came back?' Una asked.

'Of course not. He said, "When Cornplanter and I ask you what Big Hand said to the whites you can tell the Lame Chief. All that talk was left behind in the timber, as Big Hand ordered. Tell the Lame Chief there will be no war. He can go back to France with that word."

"Talleyrand and me hadn't met for a long time except at emigre parties. When I give him the message he just shook his head. He was sorting buttons in the shop.

"I cannot return to France with nothing better than the word of an unsophisticated savage," he says.

""Hasn't the President said anything to you?" I asked him.

"He has said everything that one in his position

ought to say, but-but if only I had what he said to his Cabinet after Genet rode off I believe I could change Europe-the world, maybe."

""I'm sorry," I says. "Maybe you'll do that without my help."

'He looked at me hard. "Either you have unusual observation for one so young, or you choose to be insolent," he says.

666

"It was intended for a compliment," I says. "But no odds. We're off in a few days for our summer trip, and I've come to make my good-byes."

""I go on my travels too," he says. "If ever we meet again you may be sure I will do my best to repay what I owe you.'

"Without malice, abbe, I hope," I says.

666

"None whatever," says he. "Give my respects to your adorable Dr. Pangloss (that was one of his sidenames for Toby) and the Huron." I never could teach him the difference betwixt Hurons and Senecas.

"Then Sister Haga came in for a paper of what we call "pilly buttons," and that was the last I saw of Talleyrand in those parts.'

'But after that you met Napoleon, didn't you?' said Una.

'Wait just a little, dearie. After that, Toby and I went to Lebanon and the Reservation, and, being older and knowing better how to manage him, I enjoyed myself well that summer with fiddling and fun. When we came back, the Brethren got after Toby because I wasn't learning any lawful trade, and he had hard work to save me from being apprenticed to Helmbold and Geyer the printers. "Twould have ruined our music together, indeed it would; and when we escaped that, old Mattes

Roush, the leather-breechesmaker round the corner, took a notion I was cut out for skin-dressing. But we were rescued. Along towards Christmas there comes a big sealed letter from the Bank saying that a Monsieur Talleyrand had put five hundred dollars a hundred pounds to my credit there to use as I pleased. There was a little note from him inside-he didn't give any address—to thank me for past kindnesses and my believing in his future which he said was pretty cloudy at the time of writing. I wished Toby to share the money. I hadn't done more than bring Talleyrand up to Hundred and Eighteen. The kindnesses were Toby's. But Toby said, "No! Liberty and Independence for ever. I have all my wants, my son." So I gave him a set of new fiddle-strings and the Brethren didn't advise us any more. Only Pastor Meder he preached about the deceitfulness of riches, and Brother Adam Goos said if there was war the English 'ud surely shoot down the Bank. I knew there wasn't going to be any war, but I drew the money out and on Red Jacket's advice I put it into horse-flesh, which I sold to Bob Bicknell for the Baltimore stagecoaches. That way, I doubled my money inside the twelvemonth.'

'You gipsy! You proper gipsy!' Puck shouted.

'Why not? 'Twas fair buying and selling. Well, one thing leading to another, in a few years I had made the beginning of a worldly fortune and was in the tobacco trade.'

'Ah!' said Puck, suddenly. 'Might I inquire if you'd ever sent any news to your people in England-or in France?'

'O' course I had. I wrote regular every three months after I'd made money in the horse trade. We Lees don't

like coming home empty-handed. If it's only a turnip or an egg, it's something. Oh yes, I wrote good and plenty to Uncle Aurette, and-Dad don't read very quickly-Uncle used to slip over Newhaven way and tell Dad what was going on in the tobacco trade.'

'I see

'Aurettes and Lees-
Like as two peas.

Go on, Brother Square-toes,' said Puck. Pharaoh laughed and went on.

'Talleyrand he'd gone up in the world same as me. He'd sailed to France again, and was a great man in the Government there awhile, but they had to turn him out on account of some story about bribes from American shippers. All our poor emigres said he was surely finished this time, but Red Jacket and me we didn't think it likely, not unless he was quite dead. Big Hand had made his peace treaty with Great Britain, just as he said he would, and there was a roaring trade 'twixt England and the United States for such as 'ud take the risk of being searched by British and French men-of-wars. Those two was fighting, and just as his gentlemen told Big Hand 'ud happen―the United States was catching it from both. If an English man-o'-war met an American ship he'd press half the best men out of her, and swear they was British subjects. Most of 'em was! If a Frenchman met her he'd, likely, have the cargo out of her, swearing it was meant to aid and comfort the English; and if a Spaniard or a Dutchman met herthey was hanging on to England's coat-tails too-Lord only knows what they wouldn't do! It came over me that what I wanted in my tobacco trade was a fast