The breakfast room again; the time nine o’clock that same night. After laborious toil with brain and hand, I was enjoying a well-earned rest. Supper was over long since, and the ladies had retired a few minutes before. A snugger, more cozy place could scarcely have been found in Quebec itself. Two lamps shed a soft light, and a mighty fire roared in the huge stove.
Macdonald and I sat in easy-chairs at opposite sides of a table that was littered with books and papers, glasses, a bottle of whiskey, and a canister of tobacco. He was smoking a long churchwarden, I a stubby and blackened short one. At a small table at the other end of the room three officers of the fort were playing cards with the silence and attention of old-world gamesters.
“Nearly done with your report?” asked the factor.
“I think another day will finish it,” said I.
“It’s a trying task, no doubt.”
“I would rather be fighting Indians,” I replied. “The work is better fitted for Mr. Burley.”
“Quite so,” assented Macdonald. “By the bye, where is your legal friend to-night?”
“I’ll warrant he’s in the men’s quarters, as usual,” I answered, “on the hunt for information.”
“He’s a queer chap, but sound-headed,” said the factor. “He spoke to me of the matter that brought him to the Canadas, but I couldn’t give him any assistance; I never heard the name of Osmund Maiden.”