‘“You don’t believe me, then?” he cuts in.
‘“Not one little, little word, abbé,”I says; “except that you mean to be on the winning side. Remember, I’ve been fiddling to all your old friends for months.”
‘Well, then, his temper fled him and he called me names.
‘“Wait a minute, ci-devant,”I says at last. “I am half English and half French, but I am not the half of a man. I will tell thee something the Indian told me. Has thee seen the President?”
‘“Oh yes!” he sneers, “I had letters from the Lord Lansdowne to that estimable old man.”
‘“Then,”I says, “thee will understand. The Red Skin said that when thee has met the President thee will feel in thy heart he is a stronger man than thee.”
‘“Go!” he whispers. “Before I kill thee, go.”
‘He looked like it. So I left him.’
‘Why did he want to know so badly?’ said Dan.
‘The way I look at it is that if he had known for certain that Washington meant to make the peace treaty with England at any price, he’d ha’ left old Fauchet fumbling about in Philadelphia while he went straight back to France and told old Danton—"It’s no good your wasting time and hopes on the United States, because she won’t fight on our side—that I’ve proof of!”Then Danton might have been grateful and given Talleyrand a job, because a whole mass of things hang on knowing for sure who’s your friend and who’s your enemy. Just think of us poor shopkeepers, for instance.’