Norton Harjes fraternity, who had known my father in other days. Putting two and two together I decided that this potentate had sent an emissary to Mr. A. to demand an explanation of the various and sundry insults and indignities to which I and my friend had been subjected, and more particularly to secure our long-delayed permission. Accordingly I was in high spirits as I rushed toward the bureau. 

 I didn’t have to go far. The mysterious one, in conversation with monsieur le sous-lieutenant, met me half-way. I caught the words: “And Cummings” (the first and last time that my name was correctly pronounced by a Frenchman), “where is he?” 

 “Present,” I said, giving a salute to which neither of them paid the slightest attention. 

 “Ah yes” impenetrably remarked the mysterious one in positively sanitary English. “You shall put all your baggage in the car, at once”—then, to tin-derby-the-first, who appeared in an occult manner at his master’s elbow—“Go with him, get his baggage, at once.” 

 My things were mostly in the vicinity of the cuisine, where lodged the cuisinier, mécanicien, menuisier, etc., who had made room for me (some ten days since) on their own initiative, thus saving me the humiliation of sleeping with nineteen Americans in a tent which was always two-thirds full of mud. Thither I led the tin-derby, who scrutinised everything with surprising interest. I threw mes affaires hastily together (including some minor accessories which I was going to leave behind, but which the t-d bade me include) and emerged with a duffle-bag under one arm and a bed-roll under the other, to encounter my excellent friends, the “dirty Frenchmen,” aforesaid. They all popped out together from one door, looking rather astonished. Something by way of explanation as well as farewell was most certainly required, so I made a speech in my best French: 

 “Gentlemen, friends, comrades—I am going away immediately and shall be guillotined tomorrow.” 

 —“Oh hardly guillotined I should say,” remarked t-d, in a voice which froze my marrow despite my high spirits; while the cook and carpenter gaped audibly and the mechanician clutched a hopelessly smashed carburetor for support. 

 One of the section’s voitures, a F.I.A.T., was standing ready. General Nemo sternly forbade me to approach the Renault (in which B.’s baggage was already deposited) and waved me into the F.I.A.T., bed, bed-roll and all; whereupon t-d leaped in and seated himself opposite me in a position of perfect 

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