Dr. Werweiss was in his office, a friendly and learned-looking man, and Neil spoke to him casually, without quite knowing that he was planning to lie.

“I served as a captain in Italy, and one of my men has returned, wounded, and he’s been begging me to ask somebody here about a pioneer ancestor of his—a trader named Xavier Pic, round 1830.”

“I don’t recall the name just now. Was it spelled P-E-A-K-E?”

“No, P-I-C, I believe. I suppose it could be a corruption of Picardy?” Neil said hopefully.

“Ye-es, I suppose it could be.”

“Well, this G.I., this soldier, would like to find out if there’s any authoritative record of old Xavier in your documents. He was born about 1790, this fellow thinks, maybe born in France. I gather he’d especially like to know whether Xavier was pure French, or part Indian, also—that is, what race it would make this fellow himself.”

“Did you feel that your soldier would be pleased if he proved to be part Indian, Mr. Kingsblood, or is he one of these simple-minded Croix de Feu racialists?”

“A–-? Oh, yes, he–-What? Oh, I don’t know. I don’t believe I went into that with him—not thoroughly, I mean.”

“If you’ll wait a few moments, Mr. Kingsblood?”

Dr. Werweiss returned with an aged manuscript book. “I’m on Monsieur Pic’s trail, I think.”

“You are?” It was the second of waiting before the judge’s sentence.

Dr. Werweiss was casual. “I’ve found him here in Taliaferro’s diary. Yes. ‘X. Pic.’ May be the same one—helped arrest a bad Indian, it seems. But Major Taliaferro doesn’t say whether Pic had any Indian blood himself or not. Of course, if he was born in France, he wouldn’t have, unless his father had brought a squaw wife home from Canada, which did happen, but not frequently.”

Neil was relieved, and ashamed of being relieved, and relieved again that Biddy and Biddy’s father were uncorrupted Caucasians.

“But,” Dr. Werweiss went on, “whether Pic had Indian blood or not, he did marry a Chippewa wife.”

–-Oh, blast it! I forgot all about great-great-great-grandmama, bless her tanned hide! Why didn’t Xavier stay home in France or New Orleans or wherever he belonged, curse his itching feet! What did I ever do to him, a century and a quarter ago, to make him do this to me?

Then, all unconscious and benign, Dr. Werweiss let him have it:

“No, I think it’s very doubtful that Xavier Pic was part Indian, because—now I don’t know whether you’ll consider it wise to tell your inquiring veteran or not; so many people do have vulgar superstitions about race; but the fact is that your friend’s ancestor, Xavier, is mentioned by Major Taliaferro as being a full-blooded Negro.”

Neil’s face could not have changed, for Dr. Werweiss went on, quite cheerfully, “Of course you know that in most Southern states and a few Northern ones, a ‘Negro’ is defined, by statute, as a person having even ‘one drop of Negro blood,’ and according to that barbaric psychology, your soldier friend and any children he may have, no matter how white they look, are legally one-hundred-percent Negroes.”