Lastly I realized that I was standing, hat
in hand, overcoat across my arm, considering my revolver, and wondering
whether taking it with me would be too stagy and absurd.
"No more so than all the rest of it," I decided, shrugging. Dropping the
thing into my pocket, I made for the _ascenseur_.
"I shan't be back to-night," I informed the hall porter woodenly. "Or
perhaps to-morrow night. But, of course, I'm keeping my room."
With his wish for a charming trip to speed me, I left the Ritz, and
luckily no vision was vouchsafed me of the condition in which I should
return: Two crutches, a bandaged head, an utterly disreputable aspect;
my bedraggled state equaled--and this I would maintain with swords and
pistols if necessary--that of any poilu of them all.
As I drove toward the station, various headlines stared at me from the
kiosks. "Franz von Blenheim Rumored on Way to France," ran one of them.
Hang Franz. I had had enough of him to last the rest of my life. "Duke
of Raincy-la-Tour Still Missing," proclaimed another. I knew something
about him, too; but what? Ah, to be sure, he was the Firefly of France,
the hero of the Flying Corps, the young nobleman of whose suspected
treason I had read in that extra on the ship.
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