The spirit of the afternoon was toward idleness.  We fished some, but loitered more, and I had no word of reproof for the men for using hours of good daylight playing the dish game they had learned among the Ottawas.  I heard them stake their patrimony in this world, and their hopes of the next, on the throw of the black and yellow balls, but I smoked my pipe, and let them brag and squabble.  The bees were droning, the sun lay warm on my back, and the forest was at peace.  Two years before, I remembered, I had worn lace and periwig on this day, and had stood in his majesty’s antechamber.  Now I was gaunt and rusty as a bear in spring.  I looked at the secret forest, the uncharted water, and at my smoke-grimed men squatting like monkeys over a savage game, and I smote my knee with content.  Truly it was a satisfying thing to live while the world afforded such contrasts!  And if I played my present cards with skill, there might be a still greater contrast in store for me when next I stood in that ante-chamber and heard my name carried within.  But that thought made me restless, and I went in search of the Englishman.

The Englishman had sat apart from us since we landed, and now I found him with his back against a rock ledge looking at the water.  I was in a mood when I had to wag my tongue to some one and ease myself of some spreading fancies.  So I dropped down beside him.

“Monsieur,” I began by way of introduction to my theme, “are you indeed a yeoman?”

He looked up with an excess of solemnity.  “No, monsieur.”

This was not the answer I had expected,—­though, in truth, I had given the matter little thought.  “Then you are a gentleman?” I asked, deflected from my intended speech.

He shook his head.  “No, monsieur, no gentleman.”

I did not like his hidden play with words, although I understood it.  “That is a farce!” I said unkindly.  “It is folly to say that in your Colonies you will have no caste.  You cannot change nature.  Can you make a camel of a marmoset?  I asked you what you were born?”

He smiled.  “I was born an English subject.  Monsieur, I have answered three questions.  You owe me three in turn.  Did you ever know Robert Cavelier?”

I stared.  “The Seigneur de la Salle?”

“The same.”

I stared again.  “He has been dead for eight years.  What do you, an Englishman, know of him?”

He gave a wave of the hand.  “It was my question,” he reminded.  “I asked if you knew him.”

I could not but be amused.  How he liked to play at mystery!  I would copy his brevity.  “Yes,” I replied.

He looked up with much interest.  “So you knew him.  Tell me, monsieur, was he mountebank and freebooter, or a gallant gentleman much maligned?”