The French government
didn't keep people like me in prison.--They fired some questions about
America at me, to which I imaginatively replied. I think I told the
younger that the average height of buildings in America was nine hundred
metres. He stared and shook his head doubtfully, but I convinced him in
the end. Then in my turn I asked questions, the first being: Where was my
friend?--It seems that my friend had left Gre (or whatever it was) the
morning of the day I had entered it.--Did they know where my friend was
going?--They couldn't say. They had been told that he was very
dangerous.--So we talked on and on: How long had I studied French? I
spoke very well. Was it hard to learn English?--
Yet when I climbed out to relieve myself by the roadside one of them was
at my heels.
Finally watches were consulted, tunics buttoned, hats donned. I was told
in a gruff voice to prepare myself; that we were approaching the end of
our journey. Looking at the erstwhile participants in conversation, I
scarcely knew them. They had put on with their caps a positive ferocity
of bearing. I began to think that I had dreamed the incidents of the
preceding hours.
We descended at a minute, dirty station which possessed the air of having
been dropped by mistake from the bung of the _gouvernement francais_.
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