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of tin and copper.”
    â€œYou have an established itinerary, then?” Marc lit his pipe with a tinder stick and puffed peaceably.
    â€œWell, not what you’d really call regular-like,” O’Hurley said.
    â€œWhich is to say, we improvise,” Connors said, leaning over to allow Marc to light his clay calumet with a fresh tinder, “as occasion dictates.” He sucked his tobacco into life and continued. “As a man of the world, I’m sure you know there are people in this distant dominion of King William who, notwithstanding the intent and principle of His Majesty’s law so recently and justly amended—”
    â€œYou are referring to the repeal of the Alien Act? Naturalized citizens from the United States can now keep their property and participate fully in political life,” Marc asserted confidently.
    Connors squinted—part frown and part smile—then grinned and said, “Yes, but many of your countrymen persist in believing that any resident of this province who hails from the United States of America—however long ago and however naturalized since—is a primee fashia blackguard and potential seditionist. A Yankee spy under every rock, to use the vernacular.”
    â€œSo you move about … judiciously,” Marc offered.
    â€œHow well put. You seem uncommonly schooled for a soldier, sir.”
    Marc acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “And are you a smithy as well?”
    O’Hurley coughed and spluttered into his cup.
    â€œI, sir,” Connors declaimed, “am a smithy of words and subordinate clauses, of tracts and contracts—monetary, fiduciary, and commercial. I draw up bills of sale and bills of lading, deeds of property and dunnings of debt. I drum and I stake and I capitalize; I minister and mollify.”
    â€œA solicitor, then.”
    Connors reeled back as if struck by a blow as cowardly as it was mortal. “You jest, sir. If I am to be vilified by that name, it can only be in the generic sense. I do what lawyers in my country do, but without the handicap of education or licence. In brief, young sir, I am what the Republic hails as its quintessential citizen: an entrepreneur.” He leaned back, laid his gloved hands across his mustard waistcoat, and smiled without a trace of guile.
    â€œHe does the thinkin’,” O’Hurley said, “and I do the craftin’.”
    â€œThe perfect partnership, you might say,” Connors added.
    â€œAnd you travel together, then? Both of you on a single donkey?”
    â€œNot literally, of course, like Yankee Doodle or our Good Lord on Palm Sunday. I come up by myself to scout out new territory and solicit orders, and once in a blue moon I get the urge to hit the open road for a spell. Then Ferris and I set out in tandem.”
    Assuming he had been tossed a cue, Ferris blinked sleepily and said, “Ninian’s got a sister up here he likes to visit.”
    â€œAnd where does she live?”
    â€œNow you’ve gone and done it, Ferris old friend,” Connors sighed. “You’ve flat out embarrassed me.” He turned to Marc and slowly raised his downcast, abashed eyes. “The visits to my dear sister are, sir, acts of kindness towards that poor impoverished soul and her wretched children, and Ferris knows full well I do not wish to have broadcast those acts of Christian charity that should be executed privily for their own sake and not for the public aggrandizement of the perpetrator.”
    â€œI think it’s time for me to turn in,” Marc said.
    â€œYou’ll not have one more drink, then?”
    Marc yawned and shook his head.
    â€œSurely one toast to His Majesty.”
    â€œJust two fingers, then,” Marc said.
    â€œWhy don’t you give him a swig from the canteen?” O’Hurley suggested.
    Connors shot him a look that was part reproving, part resignation, then managed to attach his smile to it