without a license, on shares with a partner.

"Quick wealth that way, Ramsay, an you have courage to go to the north.
An it were not for Hortense, I'd hire that young rapscallion of a
Gillam to take me north."

I caught his drift, and had to tell him that I meant to try my fortune
in the English court.

But he paid small heed to what I said, gazing absently at the creatures
in the jars.

"'Twould be devilish dangerous for a girl," he muttered, pulling
fiercely at his mustache.

"Do you mean the court, sir?" I asked.

"Aye," returned the doctor with a dry laugh that meant the opposite of
his words. "An you incline to the court, learn the tricks o' the
foils, or rogues will slit both purse and throat."

And all the while he was smiling as though my going to the court were
an odd notion.

"If I could but find a master," I lamented.

"Come to me of an evening," says M. Picot. "I'll teach you, and you
can tell me of the fur trade."

You may be sure I went as often as ever I could. M. Picot took me