“It’s a quick and pleasant transformation,” said Robert, appreciatively.

He would have called it supper, but in Montreal it was dinner, and it was served by Lizette and Marie.  There was fish from the St. Lawrence, chicken, beef, many vegetables, good white bread and coffee, all prepared in the excellent manner characteristic of Monsieur Jolivet’s famous inn.  Tayoga ate abundantly but delicately.  He had learned the use of knife and fork at the school in Albany, and, like Robert, he was fastidious at the table.

Monsieur Jolivet, after his manner, gave them much of his own presence.  One must be polite to the Bostonnais at such a time.  He discoursed quite freely of Montreal, and of its advantages as a great trading post with the Indians, who already brought there vast quantities of furs.  It would become one of the greatest and most brilliant jewels in the French crown, second perhaps only to Paris.  But for the present, the chief glory of New France could be seen only at Quebec Ah, when the Bostonnais arrived there they would behold great lords and great ladies!

The three listened, each interested in his own way.  Robert’s fancy saw the silken splendor of a vice-regal court, and, anxious to know the larger world, he was more glad than ever that he had come upon this errand, dangerous though it had proved to be.

They sat a while after the dinner was over, looking down at the town and the great view beyond, a clear moon and brilliant stars casting a silver light which illuminated almost like the day.  They saw lights gleaming in houses, and now and then shadowy figures passing.  Out in the river a boat with a mast rocked in the current, and Robert believed it was the Frontenac of Louis de Galisonniere.

As the dusk thickened over the great river, the island, the hills and the forest, Hochelaga seemed very small, and the inn of the excellent Monsieur Jolivet was just a tiny point of light in all that vast darkness.  It shone, nevertheless, by contrast, and was a little island of warmth and comfort in the sea of the wilderness.  Monsieur Jolivet, who was deeply interested in the Bostonnais and the proud young Iroquois, talked freely.  Under his light and chattering manner lay great powers of perception, and he saw that he had guests of quality, each in his own way.  The hunter even was not an ordinary hunter, but, as Monsieur Jolivet judged, a man of uncommon intellectual power, and also of education.  He would discover as much about them as he could, for his own personal gratification, because he might give valuable information to the commandant at Montreal, who was his friend, and because later on he might speak a useful word or two in the ear of Louis de Galisonniere, whom he knew well and whose good opinion he valued.