Up to now a walk through the streets had been a night-mare to Simpson, for the squalor of them excited to protest every New England nerve in his body, and the evident hostility of the people constantly threatened his success with them.  He had felt very small and lonely, like a man who has undertaken to combat a natural force; he did not like to feel small and lonely, and he did not want to believe in natural forces.  Chosen vessel as he believed himself to be, thus far the island had successfully defied him, and he had feared more than once that it would do so to the end.  He had compelled himself to frequent the markets, hoping always that he would find in them the key to the door that was closed against him; he had not found it, and, although he recognized that three weeks was but a fractional moment of eternity, and comforted himself by quoting things about the “mills of God,” he could not approach satisfaction with what he had accomplished so far.

His interview with the carpenter had changed all that, and on his way home he trod the Grand Rue more lightly than he had ever done.  Even the cathedral, even the company of half-starved conscripts that straggled past him in the tail of three generals, dismayed him no longer, for the cathedral was but the symbol of a frozen Christianity which he need no longer fear, and the conscripts were his people—­his—­or soon would be.  All that he had wanted was a start; he had it now, though he deplored the rum which would be drunk at his first meeting with the natives.  One must begin where one could.

Witherbee, sitting in the window of the consulate, called twice before Simpson heard him.

“You look pretty cheerful,” he said.  “Things going well?”

“They’ve just begun to, I think—­I think I’ve found the way to reach these people.”

“Ah?” The monosyllable was incredulous though polite.  “How’s that?”

“I’ve just been ordering some furniture from a carpenter,” Simpson answered.  It was the first time since the day of his arrival that he had seen Witherbee to speak to, and he found it a relief to speak in his own language and without calculating the result of his words.

“A carpenter?  Vieux Michaud, I suppose?”

“That’s his name.  You know him?”

“Very well.”  The consul tipped back his chair and tapped his lips with a pencil.  “Very well.  He’s a clever workman.  He’ll follow any design you give him, and the woods, of course, are excellent.”

“Yes.  He showed me some.  But he’s more than a carpenter to me.  He’s more—­receptive—­than most of the natives, and it seems that his shop is a gathering place—­a centre.  He asked me to come in the evenings.”

“And drink rum?” Witherbee could not resist that.

“Ye-es.  He said they drank rum.  I sha’n’t do that, of course, but one must begin where one can.”

“I suppose so,” Witherbee answered slowly.  The office was darkened to just above reading-light, and the consul’s face was in the shadow.  Evidently he had more to say, but he allowed a long silence to intervene before he went on.  Simpson, imaging wholesale conversions, sat quietly; he was hardly aware of his surroundings.