"His family has been here since Frontenac's time.

He is a figure in the district, with a hand in everything.

He does enough foolish things to ruin any man, yet swims along--swims along.

He has many kinds of business--mills, stores, farms, lime-kilns, and all that, and keeps them all going; and as if he hadn't enough to do, and wasn't risking enough, he's now organizing a cheese-factory on the co-operative principle, as in Upper Canada among the English." "He has a touch of originality, that's sure," was the reply of the Judge.
The Clerk of the Court nodded and sighed.

"Monseigneur Giron of Laval, the greatest scholar in Quebec, he said to me once that M'sieu' Jean Jacques missed being a genius by an inch.