With some labor, since the English is only a translucent, and not a transparent medium to Sorel, this is made clear. Still the horizon is dark.
Mr. Fox draws his chair nearer, facing Sorel, who looks uneasy: Sorel's feelings, to the thousandth degree of subdivision, are always declaring themselves in swift succession upon his face.
Mr. Fox proceeds.
“The great officer of the custom-house, the collector—”
“Le chef?” interrupts Sorel.
—yes, the chef (Mr. Fox seizes upon the word and clings to it),—the chef has been speaking anxiously to Mr. Fox about this vacancy: Mr. Fox is in the chefs confidence.
“Ah!” from Sorel, in a tone of utter bewilderment.
“We must have,” the chef had said to Mr. Fox,—“we must have for this place a noble man, a man with a large heart” (the exact required dimensions Mr. Fox does not give); “a man who loves his government, a man who has showed himself ready to die for her; we must have”—here Mr. Fox bends forward and lays his hand upon Sorel's knee, and looks him in the eye,—“we must have—a soldier!”
“Ah!” says Sorel, moving his chair back a little, unconsciously, “il faut un soldat! I un-'stan',—le chef 'e boun' to 'ave one sol'ier!”
Still no comprehension of the stranger's object. Curiosity, however, prompts Sorel at this point to an inquiry: “'Ow much 'e goin' pay 'im?”