The Collected Works of P. C. Wren: Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories. P. C. Wren
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as well as I speak good old U.S. . . . Why, yes--lots of home people and Britishers here. . . . Most of our waiters can help 'em out too, when they're stuck for the French of 'Yes, I'll have a highball, Bo,'" and she tinkled a pretty little laugh.
"Guess that's fine," said I. "I want to turn in here for a day or two. All upset at my place." (Very true, indeed). "Just to sleep and breakfast. Got a vacant location?"
"Sure," said my fair friend, and glanced at an indicator. "Troisième. Eighteen francs. No--breakfast only--fourteen. Going up now?" And she unhooked a key and passed it to me with a brief "Deux cent vingt deux. The bell-hop will show you."
"Not bringing any stuff in," I said, and drew my entire fortune from my pocket, as one who would pay whatever was desired in advance, and the more the merrier.
"Shucks," said my friendly damsel, and I gathered that I was deemed trustworthy.
In the big book that she pushed to me I wrote myself down as Smith, but clung to the "John," that there might be something remnant and stable in a whirling and dissolving universe.
"Guess I'll hike up and take possession now," said I thereafter, and with my best smile and bow I turned to the lift before she could send to the hall-porter to dispatch a supposititious suit-case to the spot.
The lift-boy piloted me to number two hundred and twenty-two, where, safe inside, I bolted the door and drew breath.
"J'y suis, j'y reste," said I, in tribute to my very French surroundings . . . "and the less they see of me below, the less they'll notice my lack of luggage and evening kit."
It occurred to me that it might be worth the money to buy a pair of pyjamas and have them sent to Monsieur Smith, No. 222 Hôtel Normandie. If I laid them out on the flat square pillow that crowned the lace-covered bed, the chamber-maid would not be so likely to comment on the paucity of my possessions, particularly if I locked the wardrobe and pocketed the key as though to safeguard a valuable dressing-case.
If I also avoided the dining-room, where, in my lounge-suit, I should be extremely conspicuous among the fashionable evening throng, I might well hope to dwell in peaceful obscurity without rousing unwelcome interest and attention, in spite of the inadequacy of my equipment.
I decided to sally forth, buy some pyjamas, order them to be sent in at once, and then fortify myself with a two-franc dinner and a glass of vin ordinaire--probably très ordinaire--in some restaurant.
After an uncomfortable wash in the lavabo, I strolled nonchalantly forth, made my purchases, and enjoyed a good and satisfying meal in a cheerful place situated in a somewhat ignobler part of the Rue de Rivoli, at a little distance from the fashionable centre of Paris.
Returning to my over-furnished unhomely room, I spread out the gay pyjamas which awaited me, and wondered when the chamber-maid would come to turn down the bed. And then I realised that I need have felt no anxiety, for I had only to bolt the door and shout something when she came, and she would depart in ignorance of my complete lack of luggage and possessions.
However, I should not be able to keep her out in the morning, when I went in search of breakfast and the recruiting-office, and then the pyjamas and the locked wardrobe would play their part.
Even as I stood revolving these important trifles in my youthful breast, the door opened and in burst a hard-featured middle-aged woman. Anything less like the French chamber-maid of fiction and the drama could not well be imagined; for she was fair-haired, grey-eyed, unprepossessing, and arrayed in a shapeless black frock, plain apron, and ugly cap.
With a curt apology she flicked down a corner of the bed-clothes, slapped the pyjamas down (in what is presumably the only place whence a self-respecting hotel guest can take them up), glanced at the unused washstand, and scurried from the room.
As I heard her unlock the door of the next apartment, almost before she had closed mine, I realised that she was far too busy to concern herself with my deficiencies, and ceased to worry myself on the subject.
Feeling that sleep was yet far from me, and that if I sat long in that unfriendly room I should go mad, I descended to the fumoir, sought a big chair in a retired nook, and, from behind a deplorable copy of La Vie Parisienne, watched the frequenters of this apparently popular lounge.
Here I thought long thoughts of Isobel, my brothers, and Brandon Abbas; and occasionally wondered what would happen on the morrow.
Nothing at all would happen until I had discovered the procedure for enlisting in the Foreign Legion, and the discovery of that procedure must be to-morrow's business.
Were I a romancer as well as a romantic, now would be the moment for me to announce the dramatic entry of the French officer who had fired our young imaginations, years before, and sown the seeds now bearing fruit.
As I sat there in the lounge of the Paris hotel, he would enter and call for coffee and a cognac. I should go up to him and say, "Monsieur le Capitaine does not remember me, perhaps?" He would rise, take my hand, and say, "Mon Dieu! The young Englishman of Brandon Abbas!" I should tell him of my ambition to be a soldier of France, to tread in his footsteps, to rise to rank and fame in the service of his great country, and he would say, "Come with me--and all will be well. . . ."
Unfortunately he did not enter, and presently, finding myself the last occupant of the lounge and inclined to yawn, I crept unwillingly to bed. I fell asleep, trying to remember his name.
§3.
The next day was Sunday, and I spent it miserably between the lounge and my bedroom.
On Monday morning, after a spongeless bath and an unsatisfying petit déjeuner, I sallied forth and put myself in the hands of an excellent barber, and, while enjoying his deft ministrations, had a bright idea. I would pump this chatty person.
"You don't know Algeria, I suppose?" I asked the man.
"But no, Monsieur," he replied. "Is Monsieur going there?"
"I hope to," I said. "A magnificent colony of your great country, that."
Ah, it was, indeed. Monsieur might well say so. A wonderful achievement and the world's model colony. Growing too, always growing. . . . This excellent pénétration pacifique to the South and towards Morocco. . . .
"They do the pacific penetration by means of the bayonets of the Foreign Legion mostly, don't they?" I asked.
The Frenchman smiled and shrugged.
"A set of German rascals," he said. "But they have their uses. . . ."
"How do you get them?" I asked.
Oh, they just enlisted. Made their engagements volontaires, like anybody else, at the head recruiting-office of the French army in the Rue St. Dominique. Simply enlisted there and were packed off to Africa. . . .
"But I thought service was wholly compulsory in this country?" said I. "How then do you have recruiting-offices for a conscript army?"
The worthy soul explained at length, and so far as I could follow his swift idiomatic talk, that any Frenchman could, if he liked, volunteer for service before the time came when he must serve, whether he liked it or not. Sometimes, for business reasons, it was very convenient to get it over and done with, instead of having it to do later, when one was established. Hence the recruiting-office for the French army. But no Frenchman could volunteer for the Legion until he had done his compulsory service. . . .
I let him talk on, keeping the words Rue St. Dominique clearly in my mind the while. I had got what I wanted, and the sooner I found this recruiting-office the better, for funds would soon be running low.
On leaving the shop I hailed a fiacre, said, "Rue St. Dominique," and jumped in, excusing my extravagance by my absolute ignorance of the route, and the need for haste.
Again I enjoyed the drive, feeling excited and buoyant, and filled with the sense of adventure. After a time, I found we were in what appeared to be the military quarter of Paris,