In his second it had
passed four. And now, in his third, it was getting very
near to eight.
Where did the money go? Just where all public money always
goes when parasites govern a country. The inspector found
out that many items of cost for supplies to the different
posts had a cipher added to them. The officials told him
why: 'We have to do it because the price of living has
gone up ten times over.' But how did such an increase
come about? The goods were sold from favourite to favourite,
each man getting his wholly illegal profit, till the
limit was reached beyond which Bigot thought it would
not be safe to go. By means of false accounts, by lying
reports and by the aid of accomplices in France who
stopped letters from Montcalm and other honest men, the
game went on for two years. Now it was found out. But
the gang was still too strong in Canada to be broken up.
In France it was growing weak. Another couple of years
and all its members would have been turned out by the
home government. They knew this; and, seeing that their
end was coming in one way or another, they thought a
British conquest could not be much worse than a French
prison; indeed, it might be better, for a complete and
general ruin might destroy proof of their own guilt. The
lions would die fighting--and a good thing too! But the
owls and foxes might escape with the spoils.
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