"With my apologies," said I. "An atheist."

The French commissioner frowned at me. Miss Godefroy bowed her head but I could see the edge of her bright eyes as they looked up from under her brow. Perhaps she was amused but her mother seemed likely to never look my way again. I was upset to have been rude to the lady of the house, although she could not damage me as severely as my employer who would not tell me what my future held.

After breakfast I stood alone on the great porch and observed streams of worshippers move across the landscape to their different destinations like ants before a deluge. Two hours later I saw them all return. Then it was the dinner hour. Then afternoon service. Then teatime. Then evening service. Then supper. Then Mr. Godefroy read a Bible chapter, Lord knows which one.

So what was my future?

Not a word.

That night was cold and the blanket thin. When it was finally Monday I went eagerly to my desk, only to find it already occupied by Miss Godefroy.

"Good morning, Mr. Larrit," cried she.

"Am I required?" I asked my employer.

"No," said he.

I inquired was there anything else he wished to tell me. He said that there was not. Goddamn them. I needed paid employment.

I returned to my room, reflecting on the general thoughtlessness of aristocrats. They never imagine a man has a life of his own. When they are done with him, then it is over, and when they want him, then he must come back again. So it had been with the Marquis de Tilbot who had walked into the architect's office like he had been away twelve minutes not as many years. "Come up-country," he said. "You are a clever chap; it will make your name."

Well, who does not want to have a name? "But I have a family," I said.

"And you will return to them with money in your pocket, royal ribbons on your coat."

And what did I know of him that would make me trust his word? Nothing. He could eat a trout alive. He was a spy. For a frightened boy to believe him was one thing, but what about a man?

Eight months later, having suffered dysentery, tropical ulcers, and a continual anxiety about my wife and child, having bashed my way through the worst of Queensland and New Guinea, I arrived in what was then Porte de Bergamote where I fully trusted I would get a berth on a Sydney clipper, but there had never been a ship for Sydney in Porte de Bergamote, not then or ever, and Monsieur was loudly astonished that I would imagine there ever could be at a time of war.

But voila! We could both get a berth to Marseille.

"As you know," he said, "your engravings were commissioned by the Empress Josephine, and she insists you call on her at home."

As a result of this and other lies, I began to have foolish ideas about what would happen to me in France. I wrote to my dear wife. I have no copy of my letter but fear it was filled with too much empress and insufficient heart. In any case this stupid act had her take the boy to Melbourne with that famous liar, Ted Spence.

The composition of that two-page letter was the most stupid thing I ever did, and all my life, as now at Wethersfield, this memory made me grimace and cry out.

I went downstairs again and demanded, "Are you dismissing me?"

He was in the library reciting opinions, his head back, his eyes half closed.

"No, no," Miss Godefroy said. I did not think this was her business. She was not married to him yet.

"I have an important job for you," said his lordship, still reclining.

"What is it?"

"I will tell you later," said he, and I thought, He has no more clue than a blind pig. He will send me up-country perhaps, and what of my own life, and my own happiness?

I walked into Wethersfield that afternoon wishing only to get the burn of arrack in my throat. The town was dry, I was told three times, and just as I was getting in a mighty rage about Jesus Christ and all his ministers, I entered a likely doorway and found a landlord mixing sherry cobblers. Blow the man down.

After I had tried a cobbler, he made me what they call a cocktail after which my natural temper came hurtling back. The landlord then begged I try his pick-me-up. Having obliged him, I was ready to ask him the role of religion in a town where they burned people who did not know their catechism.

To this he responded with a doleful kind of hymn, sung in a deep bass voice-Damnation! Oh, damnation-and this provoked a croaking laugh from an individual who now began drowsily rocking herself in a dark corner.

"Not salvation," said she who may have been his wife. "Damnation, damnation," and off they set, the pair of them like Christmas carolers.

I finished my pick-me-up and I thanked the pair of them for improving my idea of Connecticut. Then I set off to discover the whereabouts of Old Farm. I was most fortunate there was a moon to light my way home, or perhaps it might have been better if I lost my way, for on ascending the stairs I went into my master's room and shook him violently awake.

I OPENED MY EYES the following morning and beheld Olivier de Garmont-his silk gown, his surprisingly athletic legs-standing at my bedroom door. The light was bright as all the Christian faiths and his nightgown was like a dirty rag.

"How do you feel, Master Larrit?"

"I am ill."

"I would expect you are."

"What have I done?" Oh dear God, I think I tried to murder him. Why then would he smile? His phiz looks like he has been dining in a coal scuttle.

"I said, Mr. Parrot, that you must take a vacation, and for some reason that made you very angry. You had a cocktail, so you said."

I had not known what a vacation was, but I recalled my boiling rage at him, and what sort of poor character he thought I had. "You offered me money."

"Of course. You were demanding money."

"I must be employed, sir. I wish to work."

"I said I would not dismiss you but you must go away and I will pay you."

"That's it!"

"You recall what next you did?"

"You accused me of blackmailing you."

"No, I said I would pay you even while you traveled to New York. It is a vacation. Vacation is an old English word, I do believe."

"You thought I was a spy. You wanted me to go where I could not witness your hanky-panky. You thought I wanted money."

"You did want money. Do you remember what you did?"

Following his eyes, I surveyed my room. "You have been at my trunk."

"No, sir, you have been at your trunk."

The lid was open. There was a mess of paper, all my papers, and black flakes everywhere, like Dit'sum on that awful day, the sky full of nightjars and alive with burning currency. Here around the bright white Christian room were my carbon papers, all destroyed. What nightmare had I woken into?

"Please sir, what have I done?"

My master came and sat upon my bed and peered down his thin straight nose at me. It was not hard to imagine him in a court of law. "It turned out you had not been writing to my mother. Nor sending her my copies."

"I can't do everything."

"Indeed. Thank heavens."

"I need my job."

"And you have your job, John Larrit. Now perhaps you should fetch some soap and water and we will discuss your vacation. It is a word you deserve to know."

He touched my head. I wish he hadn't. He departed and left me to confront the disarray. I had done battle with the Devil and his dark and glistening scales lay all around. It is possible that I had tried to stuff an aristocrat with carbon paper but I never dared to ask.