It was a "beautiful" knife, John the
Baigneur said. "What did it look like?" I demanded with some curiosity.
"It had a naked woman on the handle" Fritz said, his eyes sharp with
amusement.
And everyone agreed that it was a great pity that The Clever Man had lost
it, and everyone began timidly to restore order and put his personal
belongings back in place and say nothing at all.
But what amused me was to see the little tot in a bluish-grey French
uniform, Garibaldi, who--about when the search approached his
_paillasse_--suddenly hurried over to B. (his perspiring forehead more
perspiring than usual, his _kepi_ set at an angle of insanity) and
hurriedly presented B. with a long-lost German silver folding camp-knife,
purchased by B. from a fellow-member of Vingt-et-Un who was known to us
as "Lord Algie"--a lanky, effeminate, brittle, spotless creature who was
en route to becoming an officer and to whose finicky tastes the
fat-jowled A. tirelessly pandered, for, doubtless, financial
considerations--which knife according to the trembling and altogether
miserable Garibaldi had "been found" by him that day in the _cour_; which
was eminently and above all things curious, as the treasure had been lost
weeks before.
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