{"id":"01KG8AKHKYEC2TTAD7ECR5HM42","cid":"bafkreiepbxsrn26yo47jibxqtzvwmsnqyjnkrjm5bajc3iceagurwzpnba","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2453,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":2386,"text":"CHAPTER X.\r\nANOTHER ADVENTURER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE.\r\n\r\n\r\nAbout half-past ten o’clock, as they were thus conversing, Israel’s\r\nacquaintance, the pretty chambermaid, rapped at the door, saying, with\r\na titter, that a very rude gentleman in the passage of the court,\r\ndesired to see Doctor Franklin.\r\n\r\n“A very rude gentleman?” repeated the wise man in French, narrowly\r\nlooking at the girl; “that means, a very fine gentleman who has just\r\npaid you some energetic compliment. But let him come up, my girl,” he\r\nadded patriarchially.\r\n\r\nIn a few moments, a swift coquettish step was heard, followed, as if in\r\nchase, by a sharp and manly one. The door opened. Israel was sitting so\r\nthat, accidentally, his eye pierced the crevice made by the opening of\r\nthe door, which, like a theatrical screen, stood for a moment between\r\nDoctor Franklin and the just entering visitor. And behind that screen,\r\nthrough the crack, Israel caught one momentary glimpse of a little bit\r\nof by-play between the pretty chambermaid and the stranger. The\r\nvivacious nymph appeared to have affectedly run from him on the\r\nstairs—doubtless in freakish return for some liberal advances—but had\r\nsuffered herself to be overtaken at last ere too late; and on the\r\ninstant Israel caught sight of her, was with an insincere air of rosy\r\nresentment, receiving a roguish pinch on the arm, and a still more\r\nroguish salute on the cheek.\r\n\r\nThe next instant both disappeared from the range of the crevice; the\r\ngirl departing whence she had come; the stranger—transiently invisible\r\nas he advanced behind the door—entering the room. When Israel now\r\nperceived him again, he seemed, while momentarily hidden, to have\r\nundergone a complete transformation.\r\n\r\nHe was a rather small, elastic, swarthy man, with an aspect as of a\r\ndisinherited Indian Chief in European clothes. An unvanquishable\r\nenthusiasm, intensified to perfect sobriety, couched in his savage,\r\nself-possessed eye. He was elegantly and somewhat extravagantly dressed\r\nas a civilian; he carried himself with a rustic, barbaric jauntiness,\r\nstrangely dashed with a superinduced touch of the Parisian _salon_. His\r\ntawny cheek, like a date, spoke of the tropic, A wonderful atmosphere\r\nof proud friendlessness and scornful isolation invested him. Yet there\r\nwas a bit of the poet as well as the outlaw in him, too. A cool\r\nsolemnity of intrepidity sat on his lip. He looked like one who of\r\npurpose sought out harm’s way. He looked like one who never had been,\r\nand never would be, a subordinate.\r\n\r\nIsrael thought to himself that seldom before had he seen such a being.\r\nThough dressed à-la-mode, he did not seem to be altogether civilized.\r\n\r\nSo absorbed was our adventurer by the person of the stranger, that a\r\nfew moments passed ere he began to be aware of the circumstance, that\r\nDr. Franklin and this new visitor having saluted as old acquaintances,\r\nwere now sitting in earnest conversation together.\r\n\r\n“Do as you please; but I will not bide a suitor much longer,” said the\r\nstranger in bitterness. “Congress gave me to understand that, upon my\r\narrival here, I should be given immediate command of the _Indien_; and\r\nnow, for no earthly reason that I can see, you Commissioners have\r\npresented her, fresh from the stocks at Amsterdam, to the King of\r\nFrance, and not to me. What does the King of France with such a\r\nfrigate? And what can I _not_ do with her? Give me back the “Indien,”\r\nand in less than one month, you shall hear glorious or fatal news of\r\nPaul Jones.”\r\n\r\n“Come, come, Captain,” said Doctor Franklin, soothingly, “tell me now,\r\nwhat would you do with her, if you had her?”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJ26N7N0C417TC8ET2RR","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKJ9CE3XY05XDQKB7GQTJ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:07.806Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:15.076Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}