Fritz followed Humphrey into the big public room close to the entrance, and there he came face to face with Benjamin Ashley, who was just saying farewell to Brigadier Murray, and whose honest face lighted with pleasure at the sight of the stalwart soldier.

“It shall be seen to at once, Mr. Ashley,” the Commander was saying.  “I will set the men to work tomorrow, and in a few days the place will be habitable.  You shall have immediate possession, and the sooner you can start business the better for all.  We want Quebec to be a town again, and not a ruin.  We want to make friends of the inhabitants, and show them that the conditions of life are not altogether altered.  We want them to trust us and to think of us as friends.  I am sure you will help us in this.  Nothing like good wine and a jovial host to set men’s tongues wagging in a friendly fashion, and lighten their hearts of any load of fear and despondency.”

Murray strode out, returning the salutes of his subordinates, and the next minute Fritz and Ashley were exchanging a warm greeting.

“Welcome to Quebec, my friend; it does the heart good to see you here.  Humphrey declared you had promised to come soon; but I had not dared to think it would be this side of the winter season.”

“Why, yes; I have been ready and waiting this long while.  To tell the truth, I have had enough of Philadelphia and its Quaker-ridden Assembly.  Why, when once the war had broken out and was raging in good earnest, I longed for nothing so much as my own youth back again, that I might fight with the best of them.  And the peace palaver of the Quakers sickened me.  I came near to quarrelling with some of my old friends, and I grew eager to see fresh places, fresh faces.  I turned it over in my mind, and I thought that if Quebec fell into our hands, English-speaking citizens would surely be wanted to leaven the French and Canadians who would remain.  And if so, why should not I be one to take up my abode?”

“Why not, indeed?” cried Fritz, whose eyes were eagerly straying round the room in search of somebody he had not seen as yet.  “It was a happy thought, as our Commander has just told you, I doubt not.”

“He has been a capital friend—­he has put me in possession of this place; and I can see that there will be the making of a fine business here.  And I have not come empty-handed.  I sold the old tavern over yonder, and I have a fine store of wine and ale and salted provisions stored away on board, enough to set me up for the winter.

“I must have that old sign down,” added Ashley, stepping into the street and looking up at the battered board crazily hanging from the beam above; “we must have another one up instead.  I’ll set up a wolf’s head in its place, in memory of the gallant soldier who fell on the Plains of Abraham.  And I will call my inn the Wolfe of Quebec.”

Fritz laughed, still looking round him with quick glances.