"Listen to me, Peyrol. . . ."
"No," said the other. "If you want to talk, talk to the gunner."
Though he seemed to have adopted the notion of a double personality the rover did not seem to be much easier in one character than in the other. Furrows of perplexity appeared on his brow, and as the lieutenant did not speak at once Peyrol the gunner asked impatiently:
"So they are thinking of catching her alive?" It did not please him to hear the lieutenant say that it was not exactly this that the chiefs in Toulon had in their minds. Peyrol at once expressed the opinion that of all the naval chiefs that ever were, Citizen Renaud was the only one that was worth anything. Lieutenant Réal, disregarding the challenging tone, kept to the point.
"What they want to know is whether that English corvette interferes much with the coast traffic."
"No, she doesn't," said Peyrol: "she leaves poor people alone, unless, I suppose, some craft acts suspiciously. I have seen her give chase to one or two. But even those she did not detain. Michel – you know Michel – has heard from the mainland people that she has captured several at various times. Of course, strictly speaking, nobody is safe."
"Well, no. I wonder now what that Englishman would call 'acting suspiciously.' "
"Ah, now you are asking something. Don't you know what an Englishman is? One day easy and casual, next day ready to pounce on you like a tiger. Hard in the morning, careless in the afternoon, and only reliable in a fight, whether with or against you, but for the rest perfectly fantastic. You might think a little touched in the head, and there again it would not do to trust to that notion either."
The lieutenant lending an attentive ear, Peyrol smoothed his brow and discoursed with gusto of Englishmen as if they had been a strange, very little-known tribe. "In a manner of speaking," he concluded, "the oldest bird of them all can be caught with chaff, but not every day." He shook his head, smiling to himself faintly as if remembering a quaint passage or two.
"You didn't get all that knowledge of the English while you were a gunner," observed the lieutenant dryly.