"Not much," he answers, trying to smile, "at least not too much,
M'sieu'."

The accent of French Canada is unmistakable. I talk to him in his
own dialect.

"What part of Quebec do you come from?"

"From _Trois Rivieres,_ M'sieu', or rather from a country back
of that, the Saint Maurice River."

"I know it well--often hunted there. But what made you go to the
war?"

"I heard that England fought to save France from the damned Germans.
That was enough, M'sieu', to make me march. Besides, I always liked
to fight."

"What did you do before you became a soldier?"

"I was a lumberjack."

(What he really said was, _"J'allais en chantier,"_ "I went
in the shanty." If he had spoken in classic French he would have
said, _"J'etais bucheron."_ How it brought back the smell of
the big spruce forest to hear that word _chantier_, in Oxford!)

[Illustration: "I was a lumberjack."]

"Well, then, I suppose you will return to the wood-cutting again,