"Is the stranger English, Monsieur Jacques, mon chéri?"
"I do not doubt it, Marie-Josephine. Do you?"
"Why dost thou believe him to be English?"
"He has the tricks of speech. Also his accent is of an English university. There is no mistaking it."
"Are not young Huns sometimes instructed in the universities of England?"
"Yes.... But——"
"Gar à nous, mon p'tit, Jacques. In Finistère a stranger is a suspect. Since earliest times they have done us harm in Finistère. The strangers—God knows what centuries of evil they have wrought."
"No fear," he said, reassuringly, and turned again to the airman, who had now satisfied[pg 90] his hunger and had already risen to gather up the roll of canvas, the hammer, nails, and shellac.
"Thanks awfully, old chap!" he said cordially. "I'll take these articles, if I may. It's very good of you ... I'm in a tearing hurry——"
"Won't your pilot come over and eat a bit?"