"
"The General?" exclaimed my uncle.
"The General Paoli, sir: a fresh-complexioned man and fairer-skinned
than any Corsican we had met on our travels; tall, too, and
upstanding; dressed in green-and-gold, with black spatter-dashes, and
looking at one with an eye like a hawk's. Compliments fly when
gentlefolks meet. Though as yet I didn't know him from Adam, 'twas
easy to mark him for a person of quality by the way he lifted his hat
and bowed. Sir John bowed back, though more stiffly; and the more
compliments the General paid him, the stiffer he grew and the shorter
his answers, till by-and-by he said in English, 'I think you know a
little of my language, sir: enough, at any rate, to take my meaning?'
"The General bowed again at this, still keeping his smile.
'You do not wish my men to overhear? Yes, yes, I speak the English--
a very little--and can understand it, if you will be so good as to
speak slowly.'
"'Very well, then, sir,' said Sir John; 'if I and my man here have
been of some small service to you to-day I reckon myself happy to
have obliged so noble a patriot as Signor Pascal Paoli.
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