Ten invisible recumbents
yelled at him in six languages.
All at once a handsome figure rose from the gloom at my elbow. I smiled
stupidly into his clear hardish eyes. And he remarked pleasantly:
"Your friend's here, Johnny, and wants to see you."
A bulge of pleasure swooped along my body, chasing aches and numbness, my
muscles danced, nerves tingled in perpetual holiday.
B. was lying on his camp-cot, wrapped like an Eskimo in a blanket which
hid all but his nose and eyes.
"Hello, Cummings," he said smiling. "There's a man here who is a friend
of Vanderbilt and knew Cezanne."
I gazed somewhat critically at B. There was nothing particularly insane
about him, unless it was his enthusiastic excitement, which might almost
be attributed to my jack-in-the-box manner of arriving. He said: "There
are people here who speak English, Russian, Arabian. There are the finest
people here! Did you go to Gre? I fought rats all night there. Huge ones.
They tried to eat me. And from Gre to Paris? I had three gendarmes all
the way to keep me from escaping, and they all fell asleep."
I began to be afraid that I was asleep myself. "Please be frank," I
begged. "Strictly _entre nous_: am I dreaming, or is this a bug-house?"
B.
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