won, as it doth ever. I secretly gave our wandering wood ranger,
ex-galley slave of France, the neat sum of twenty-five pounds for this
little shoe. Poor fellow, he liked ill enough to part with it; but he
said, very sensibly, that the twenty-five pounds would take him back to
Canada, and once there, he could not only get many such shoes, but see
the maid who made this one for him, or, rather, made it for herself. As
for me, the price was cheap. You could not replace it in all the
Exchange for any money. Moreover, to show my canniness, I've won back
its cost a score of times this very night."

He laughingly extended his hand for the moccasin, which Wilson was
examining closely.

"'Tis clever made," said the latter. "And what a tale the owner of it
carried. If half he says be true, we do ill to bide here in old England.
Let us take ship and follow Monsieur du Mesne."

"'Twould be a long chase, mayhap," said Pembroke, reflectively. Yet each
of the men at that little table in the gaming room of the Green Lion
coffee-house ceased in his fingering the cards, and gazed upon this
product of another world.

Pembroke was first to break the silence, and as he heard a footfall at
the door, he called out:

"Ho, fellow! Go fetch me another bottle of Spanish, and do not forget
this time the brandy and water which I told thee to bring half an hour
ago."

The step came nearer, and as it did not retreat, but entered the room,