ash that warns the
coming hurricane.

But if you think we were a Noah's ark of solemn faces 'mid all that
warring desolation, you are much mistaken. I doubt if lamentations
ever did as much to lift mankind to victory as the naughty glee of the
shrieking fife. And of glee, we had a-plenty on all that voyage north.

La Chesnaye, son of the merchant prince who owned our ships, played
cock-o'-the-walk, took rank next to M. Radisson, and called himself
deputy-governor. Foret, whose father had a stretch of barren shingle
on The Labrador, and who had himself received letters patent from His
Most Christian Majesty for a marquisate, swore he would be cursed if he
gave the _pas_ to La Chesnaye, or any other commoner. And M. de
Radisson was as great a stickler for fine points as any of the
new-fledged colonials. When he called a conference, he must needs
muster to the quarter-deck by beat of drum, with a tipstaff, having a
silver bauble of a stick, leading the way. This office fell to
Godefroy, the trader, a fellow with the figure of a slat and a scalp
tonsured bare as a billiard-ball by Indian hunting-knife. Spite of
many a thwack from the flat of M. de Radisson's sword, Godefroy would
carry the silver mace to the chant of a "diddle-dee-dee," which he was
always humming in a sand-papered voice wherever he went. At beat of
drum for conference we all came scrambling down the ratlines like
tumbling acrobats of a country fair, Godefroy grasps his silver stick.

"Fall in line, there, deputy-governor, diddle-dee-dee!"

La Chesnaye cuffs the fellow's ears.

"Diddle-dee-dee! Come on, marquis. Does Your High Mightiness give
place to a merchant's son? Heaven help you, gentlemen! Come on! Come
on! Diddle-dee-dee!"

And we all march to M. de Radisson's cabin and sit down gravely at a
long table.

"Pot o' beer, tipstaff," orders Radisson; and Godefroy goes off
slapping his buckskins with glee.

M. Radisson no more takes off his hat than a king's ambassador, but he
waits for La Chesnaye and Foret to uncover. The merchant strums on the
table and glares at the marquis, and the marquis looks at the skylight,
waiting for the merchant; and the end of it is M. Radisson must give
Godefroy the wink, who knocks both their hats off at once, explaining
that a landsman can ill keep his legs on the sea, and the sea is no
respecter of persons. Once, at the end of his byplay between the two
young fire-eaters, the sea lurched in earn