Apollyon, seated at a desk, surveyed me very fiercely.
His subordinate swayed to and fro, clasping and unclasping his hands
behind his back, and regarded me with an expression of almost
benevolence. The Black Holster guarded the doorway.
Turning on me ferociously: "Your friend is wicked, very wicked,
SAVEZ-VOUS?" Le Directeur shouted.
I answered quietly: "Oui? Je ne le savait pas."
"He is a bad fellow, a criminal, a traitor, an insult to civilization,"
Apollyon roared into my face.
"Yes?" I said again.
"You'd better be careful!" the Directeur shouted. "Do you know what's
happened to your friend?"
"_Sais pas_," I said.
"He's gone to prison where he belongs!" Apollyon roared. "Do you
understand what that means?"
"Perhaps," I answered, somewhat insolently I fear.
"You're lucky not to be there with him! Do you understand?" Monsieur Le
Directeur thundered, "and next time pick your friends better, take more
care, I tell you, or you'll go where he is--TO PRISON FOR THE REST OF THE
WAR!"
"With my friend I should be well content in prison!" I said evenly,
trying to keep looking through him and into the wall behind his black,
big, spidery body.
"In God's Name, what a fool!" the Directeur bellowed furiously--and the
Surveillant remarked pacifyingly: "He loves his comrade too much, that's
all.
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