“Aristophe will go out and get it for me,” he announced as Aristophe—­the Lizzie—­trotted about the table at lunch-time purveying us flapjacks.

The Tin Lizzie stood rooted a second, petrified at the revolutionary scheme of his going to the club, companions unmentioned.  There one saw as if through glass an idea seeking a road through his smooth gray matter.  One had always gone to the club with Josef, or Maxime or Pierre—­certainly M’sieur meant that; one would of course be glad to go—­with Josef or Maxime or Pierre—­to get tobacco for M’sieur John.  Of course, the idea slid through the old road in the almost unwrinkled gray matter, and came safely to headquarters.

“C’est bien, M’sieur,” answered the Lizzie smiling brightly.

And with that I knocked the silly little smile into a cocked hat.  “You may start early tomorrow, Aristophe,” I said, “and get back by dark, going light, I can’t spare any other men to go with you.  But you will certainly not mind going alone—­to get tobacco for M’sieur John.”

The poor Tin Lizzie turned red and then white, and his weak mouth fell open and his eyebrows lifted till the whites of his eyes showed above the gray irises.  And one saw again, through the crystal of his unexercised brain, the operation of a painful and new thought.  M’sieur John—­a day alone in the woods—­love, versus fear—­which would win.  John and I watched the struggle a bit mercilessly.  A grown man gets small sympathy for being a coward.  And yet few forms of suffering are keener.  We watched; and the Tin Lizzie stood and gasped in the play of his emotions.  Nobody had ever given this son of the soil ideals to hold to through sudden danger; no sense of inherited honor to be guarded came to help the Lizzie; he had been taught to work hard and save his skin—­little else.  The great adoration for John which had swept him off his commonplace feet—­was it going to make good against life-long selfish caution?  We wondered.  It was curious to watch the new big feeling fight the long-established petty one.  And it was with a glow of triumph quite out of drawing that we saw the generous instinct win the battle.

“Oui, M’sieur,” spoke Aristophe, unconscious of subtleties or watching.  “I go tomorrow—­alone. C’est bien, M’sieur.”

It was about the only remark I ever heard him make, that gracious:  “C’est bien, M’sieur!” But he made it remarkably well.  Almost he persuaded me to respect him with that hearty response to the call of duty, that humble and high gift of graciousness.  One remembers him as his dolly face lighted at John’s order to go and clean trout or carry in logs, and one does not forget the absurd, queer little fast trot at which his powerful young legs would instantaneously swing off to obey the behest.  Such was the Tin Lizzie, the guide who paddled bow in my canvas canoe on the day of the celebrated frog hunt.