"fleuve," and the Isle d'Orléans lying long and low, and one thinks of
little ships, storm-beaten, creeping up to this grim bigness ignorant
of continental events trailing in their wake.

I was on my way to camp in a club a hundred miles north of the
gray-walled town when I drifted into the little dining-room for dinner
one night in early September in 1918. The head-waiter was an old friend;
he came to meet me and piloted me past a tableful of military color,
four men in service uniforms.

"Some high officers, sir," spoke the head waiter. "In conference here, I
believe. There's a French officer, and an English, and our Canadian
General Sampson, and one of your generals, sir."

I gave my order and sat back to study the group. The waiter had it
straight; there was the horizon blue of France; there was the Englishman
tall and lean and ruddy and expressionless and handsome; there was the
Canadian, more of our own cut, with a mobile, alert face. The American
had his back to me and all I could see was an erect carriage, a brown
head going to gray, and the one star of a brigadier-general on his
shoulders. The beginnings of my dinner went fast, but after soup there
was a lull before greater food, and I paid attention again to my
neighbors. They were talking in English.

"A Huron of Lorette--does that mean a full-blooded Indian of the Huron
tribe, such as one reads of in Parkman?" It was the Englishman who
asked, responding to something I had not heard.

"There's no such animal as a full-blooded Huron," stated the Canadian.
"They're all French-Indian half-breeds now. Lorette's an interesting