CHAPTER XXIII  

  CHAPTER XXIV  

  CHAPTER XXV  

  CHAPTER XXVI  

  CHAPTER XXVII  

       TO     

       THE MEMORY OF THE HEROIC GUYNEMER  “THE ACE OF THE ACES”      

    

                                         PREPARER’S NOTE This text was prepared from a 1918 edition, published by The Century Co., New York. 

   

    

       THE FIREFLY OF FRANCE     

  

       CHAPTER I     

       ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS     

       The restaurant of the Hotel St. Ives seems, as I look back on it, an odd spot to have served as stage wings for a melodrama, pure and simple. Yet a melodrama did begin there. No other word fits the case. The inns of the Middle Ages, which, I believe, reeked with trap-doors and cutthroats, pistols and poisoned daggers, offered nothing weirder than my experience, with its first scene set beneath this roof. The food there is superperfect, every luxury surrounds you, millionaires and traveling princes are your fellow-guests. Still, sooner than pass another night there, I would sleep airily in Central Park, and if I had a friend seeking       

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