‘Who’s third?’ said Puck.
‘Boney—even though I’ve seen him.’
‘Whew!’ said Puck. ‘Every man has his own weights and measures, but that’s queer reckoning.’
‘Boney?’ said Una. ‘You don’t mean you’ve ever met Napoleon Bonaparte?’
‘There, I knew you wouldn’t have patience with the rest of my tale after hearing that! But wait a minute. Talleyrand he come round to Hundred and Eighteen in a day or two to thank Toby for his kindness. I didn’t mention the dice-playing, but I could see that Red Jacket’s doings had made Talleyrand highly curious about Indians—though he would call him the Huron. Toby, as you may believe, was all holds full of knowledge concerning their manners and habits. He only needed a listener. The Brethren don’t study Indians much till they join the church, but Toby knew ’em wild. So evening after evening Talleyrand crossed his sound leg over his game one and Toby poured forth. Having been adopted into the Senecas I, naturally, kept still, but Toby ’ud call on me to back up some of his remarks, and by that means, and a habit he had of drawing you on in talk, Talleyrand saw I knew something of his noble savages too. Then he tried a trick. Coming back from an emigré party he turns into his little shop and puts it to me, laughing like, that I’d gone with the two chiefs on their visit to Big Hand. I hadn’t told. Red Jacket hadn’t told, and Toby, of course, didn’t know. ‘Twas just Talleyrand’s guess. “Now,” he says, “my English and Red Jacket’s French was so bad that I am not sure I got the rights of what the President really said to the unsophisticated Huron. Do me the favour of telling it again.”I told him every word Red Jacket had told him and not one word more. I had my suspicions, having just come from an emigré party where the Marquise was hating and praising him as usual.
‘“Much obliged,” he said. “But I couldn’t gather from Red Jacket exactly what the President said to Monsieur Genêt, or to his American gentlemen after Monsieur Genêt had ridden away.”
‘I saw Talleyrand was guessing again, for Red Jacket hadn’t told him a word about the white man’s pow-wow.’
‘Why hadn’t he?’ Puck asked.
‘Because Red Jacket was a chief. He told Talleyrand what the President had said to him and Cornplanter; but he didn’t repeat the talk, between the white men, that Big Hand ordered him to leave behind.’
‘Oh!’ said Puck. ‘I see. What did you do?’