ave in New York,
Alan," said Master Jacobus with mock humility, "but we give you of our
best."

"We've the finest oysters in the world, unless those of Baltimore be
excepted," said Hervey, "but yours are, in truth, most excellent.
Perhaps you can't expect to equal us in a specialty of ours. You'll
recall old Tom Cotton's inn, out by the East River, and how
unapproachably he serves oyster, crab, lobster and every kind of fish."

"I recall it full well, Alan. I rode out the Bowery road when I was last
in New York, but I did not get a chance to go to old Tom's. You and I
and Benjamin have seen some lively times there, when we were a bit
younger, eh, Alan?"

"Aye, Jacobus, you speak truly. We were just as much concentrated upon
self as the youth of to-day. And in our elderly hearts we're proud of
the little frivolities and dissipations that were committed then. Else
we would never talk of 'em and chuckle over 'em to one another."

"And what is more, we're not too old yet for a little taste of pleasure,
now and then, eh, Alexander?"

The schoolmaster, appealed to so directly, pursed his thin lips, lowered
his lids to hide the faint twinkle in his eyes, and replied in measured
tones:

"I cannot speak for you, Jacobus. I've known you a long time and your
example is corrupting, but I trust that I shall prove firm against
temptation."

The oysters were finished. No man left a single one untouched on his
plate, and then a thick chicken soup was served by two very black women
in gay cotton prints with red bandanna handkerchiefs tied like turbans
around their heads. Robert could see no diminution in the appetite of
the guests, nor did he feel any decrease in his own. Mr. Hervey turned
to him.

"I hear you saw the Marquis de Montcalm himself," he said.

"Yes, sir," replied Robert. "I saw him several times, at Ticonderoga,
and before that in the Oswego campaign. I've been twice a prisoner of
the French."

"How does he look?"

"Of middle age, sir, short, dark and very polite in speech."

"And evidently a good soldier. He has proved that and to our misfortune.
Yet, I cannot but think that we will produce his master. Now, I wonder
who it is going to be. Under the English system the best general does
not always come forward first, and perhaps we've not yet so much as
heard the name of the man who is going to beat Montcalm. That he will be
beaten I've no doubt. We'll conquer Canada and settle North American
affairs for al