“I carry a gun when I ride out.”

“Mon Dieu, you will be laid by the heels as a bandit!”

“I have a knife, too.”

“Worse and worse!  Well, we must dispense with the sword, and with the gun too, I pray!  Let me re-tie your cravat.  So!  Now if you are in the mood for a ten-mile gallop, I am at your service.”

They were indeed a singular contrast as they walked their horses together through the narrow and crowded causeways of the Parisian streets.  De Catinat, who was the older by five years, with his delicate small-featured face, his sharply trimmed moustache, his small but well-set and dainty figure, and his brilliant dress, looked the very type of the great nation to which he belonged.

His companion, however, large-limbed and strong, turning his bold and yet thoughtful face from side to side, and eagerly taking in all the strange, new life amidst which he found himself, was also a type, unfinished, it is true, but bidding fair to be the higher of the two.  His close yellow hair, blue eyes, and heavy build showed that it was the blood of his father, rather than that of his mother, which ran in his veins; and even the sombre coat and swordless belt, if less pleasing to the eye, were true badges of a race which found its fiercest battles and its most glorious victories in bending nature to its will upon the seas and in the waste places of the earth.

“What is yonder great building?” he asked, as they emerged into a broader square.

“It is the Louvre, one of the palaces of the king.”

“And is he there?”

“Nay; he lives at Versailles.”

“What!  Fancy that a man should have two such houses!”

“Two!  He has many more—­St. Germain, Marly, Fontainebleau, Clugny.”

“But to what end?  A man can but live at one at a time.”

“Nay; he can now come or go as the fancy takes him.”

“It is a wondrous building.  I have seen the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Montreal, and thought that it was the greatest of all houses, and yet what is it beside this?”

“You have been to Montreal, then?  You remember the fort?”

“Yes, and the Hotel Dieu, and the wooden houses in a row, and eastward the great mill with the wall; but what do you know of Montreal?”

“I have soldiered there, and at Quebec, too.  Why, my friend, you are not the only man of the woods in Paris, for I give you my word that I have worn the caribou mocassins, the leather jacket, and the fur cap with the eagle feather for six months at a stretch, and I care not how soon I do it again,”

Amos Green’s eyes shone with delight at finding that his companion and he had so much in common, and he plunged into a series of questions which lasted until they had crossed the river and reached the south-westerly gate of the city.  By the moat and walls long lines of men were busy at their drill.

“Who are those, then?” he asked, gazing at them with curiosity.