When, however, Harree Pompom
and John the Bathman came rushing up and demanded cigarettes my fears
were dispelled. Moreover the _pinard_ was excellent.
"Come on! Arrange yourselves!" the bull-neck cried hoarsely as the five
of us were lighting up; and we joined the line of fellow-prisoners with
their breads and spoons, gaping, belching, trumpeting fraternally, by the
doorway.
"_Tout le monde en haut!_" this _planton_ roared.
Slowly we filed through the tiny hall, past the stairs (empty now of
their Napoleonic burden), down the corridor, up the creaking gnarled damp
flights, and (after the inevitable pause in which the escort rattled
chains and locks) into The Enormous Room.
This would be about ten thirty.
Just what I tasted, did, smelled, saw, and heard, not to mention touched,
between ten thirty and the completion of the evening meal (otherwise the
four o'clock soup) I am quite at a loss to say. Whether it was that glass
of _pinard_ (plus, or rather times, the astonishing exhaustion bequeathed
me by my journey of the day before) which caused me to enter temporarily
the gates of forgetfulness, or whether the sheer excitement attendant
upon my ultra-novel surroundings proved too much for an indispensable
part of my so-called mind--I do not in the least know.
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