Page:November Joe.pdf/37

 He was clearly also not only the product but the master of his environment.

"Well, well, Mr. Quaritch, many's the time I've been thinking of the days we had with old Tom way up on the Roustik."

"They were good days, Joe, were n't they?"

"Sure, sure, they were!"

"I hope we shall have some more together."

"If it's hunting you want, I'm glad you're here, Mr. Quaritch. There's a fine buck using around by Widdeney Pond. Maybe we will get a look at him come sunset, for he 'most always moves out of the thick bush about dark." Then humour lit a spark in his splendid grey eyes as he looked up at me. "But we'll have a cup o' tea first."

November Joe's (by the way, I ought to mention that his birth in the month of November had given him his name), as I say, November Joe's weakness for tea had in the old days been a target upon which I had often exercised my faculty for irony and banter. The weakness was evidently still alive. I smiled; perhaps it was a relief to find a weak point in this alarmingly adequate young man.