“The citadel is a wonderful place perched up on a high rock, and you can see all over the region from it. One thing to be seen there is a brass cannon the Britishers captured at Bunker Hill. No wonder they’re proud of it. I guess it’s about all they did get.
“The Citadel runs, in the form of a big granite wall with towers and bastions stuck on it at regular intervals, all along the brow of the height overlooking the city, like a wrinkle on a forehead. Quebec, as perhaps you know, is the only walled city in America. It certainly is a great place to see. You might think that you were looking down from the Citadel on some old town in the middles ages—except for the tourists with their cameras!
“We went out to the Plains of Abraham; that is, Persimmons didn’t go, having overeaten on some cake he made himself and we wouldn’t touch, having sampled his cooking before. This is the place where Wolfe licked Montcalm. But both their names are carved on a monument just as if they had fought side by side.
“In the Post Office, where I am going to mail this letter, there is a block of granite from an old building that once stood on its site. It was called the Chien d’Or, or the Golden Dog. There is a story connected with Phillibert, the merchant who built it. He came here when Bigot, a ‘grafter’ or ‘boss,’ as we should call him nowadays, had control of the city and of New France. He ran things to suit himself and pocketed all kinds of crooked money. Phillibert ran a sort of department store and fought Bigot all he could. Over the door of his store he had the figure of a dog cut. It was gnawing a bone. The dog was meant to be Bigot and the bone the country he was ‘grafting’ on. Bigot got so sore at this that he had his brother-in-law assassinate Phillibert.
“There are more churches here than in any place I ever saw. The folks of Quebec ought to be the best in the world. Near the market in the Lower Town is one of the first churches built in America. A porch was built over its door as a token of thanksgiving when a fleet of British ships on its way to wallop Quebec was wrecked off the mouth of the St. Lawrence.
“Near where this church stands is a place where they will tell you Champlain lived in 1608 and planted the first garden in the country with seeds brought from France. In a convent on Garden Street Montcalm is buried. The Canadians have marked all these places with tablets. I think it would be a good scheme to do the same thing with historic places at home.
“But you are probably getting tired of all this. Tell the fellows we are having a great time and expect to have a better. Anyhow, I will write you before long how we come out about that queer motor boat. We are going to find out what is up; you can bet your life on that.
“Always your pal, “Ralph.”
CHAPTER VI.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
The next day the boys, enriched by many postcards and souvenirs, set out on their return trip. They voyaged along under the high banks of the St. Lawrence, from Cape Diamond to Cape Rouge, drinking in every bit of the striking scenery with interest.