The Enormous Room | Page 7

vespasienne?"
"Downstairs," he replied fuzzily, and readjusted his slumbers.
There was no one moving about in the little court. I lingered somewhat
on the way upstairs. The stairs were abnormally dirty. When I reentered,
t-d was roaring to himself. I read the journal through again. It must
have been about three o'clock.
Suddenly t-d woke up, straightened and buckled his personality, and
murmured: "It's time, come on."
Le bureau de Monsieur le Ministre was just around the corner, as it
proved. Before the door stood the patient F.I.A.T. I was ceremoniously
informed by t-d that we would wait on the steps.
Well! Did I know any more?--the American driver wanted to know.
Having proved to my own satisfaction that my fingers could still roll a
pretty good cigarette, I answered: "No," between puffs.

The American drew nearer and whispered spectacularly: "Your friend
is upstairs. I think they're examining him."
T-d got this; and though his rehabilitated dignity had accepted the
"makin's" from its prisoner, it became immediately incensed:
"That's enough," he said sternly.
And dragged me tout-à-coup upstairs, where I met B. and his t-d
coming out of the bureau door. B. looked peculiarly cheerful. "I think
we're going to prison all right," he assured me.
Braced by this news, poked from behind by my t-d, and waved on from
before by M. le Ministre himself, I floated vaguely into a very washed,
neat, business-like and altogether American room of modest
proportions, whose door was immediately shut and guarded on the
inside by my escort.
Monsieur le Ministre said:
"Lift your arms."
Then he went through my pockets. He found cigarettes, pencils, a
jack-knife and several francs. He laid his treasures on a clean table and
said: "You are not allowed to keep these. I shall be responsible." Then
he looked me coldly in the eye and asked if I had anything else?
I told him that I believed I had a handkerchief.
He asked me: "Have you anything in your shoes?"
"My feet," I said, gently.
"Come this way," he said frigidly, opening a door which I had not
remarked. I bowed in acknowledgment of the courtesy, and entered
room number 2.
I looked into six eyes which sat at a desk.

Two belonged to a lawyerish person in civilian clothes, with a bored
expression, plus a moustache of dreamy proportions with which the
owner constantly imitated a gentleman ringing for a drink. Two
appertained to a splendid old dotard (a face all ski-jumps and toboggan
slides), on whose protruding chest the rosette of the Legion pompously
squatted. Numbers five and six had reference to Monsieur, who had
seated himself before I had time to focus my slightly bewildered eyes.
Monsieur spoke sanitary English, as I have said.
"What is your name?"--"Edward E. Cummings."
--"Your second name?"--"E-s-t-l-i-n," I spelled it for him.--"How do
you say that?"--I didn't understand.--"How do you say your
name?"--"Oh," I said; and pronounced it. He explained in French to the
moustache that my first name was Edouard, my second
"A-s-tay-l-ee-n," and my third "Kay-umm-ee-n-gay-s"--and the
moustache wrote it all down. Monsieur then turned to me once more:
"You are Irish?"--"No," I said, "American."--"You are Irish by
family?"--"No, Scotch."--"You are sure that there was never an
Irishman in your parents?"--"So far as I know," I said, "there never was
an Irishman there."--"Perhaps a hundred years back?" he insisted.--"Not
a chance," I said decisively. But Monsieur was not to be denied: "Your
name it is Irish?"--"Cummings is a very old Scotch name," I told him
fluently, "it used to be Comyn. A Scotchman named The Red Comyn
was killed by Robert Bruce in a church. He was my ancestor and a very
well-known man."--"But your second name, where have you got
that?"--"From an Englishman, a friend of my father." This statement
seemed to produce a very favorable impression in the case of the
rosette, who murmured: "_Un ami de son père, un Anglais, bon!_"
several times. Monsieur, quite evidently disappointed, told the
moustache in French to write down that I denied my Irish parentage;
which the moustache did.
"What does your father in America?"--"He is a minister of the gospel,"
I answered. "Which church?"--"Unitarian." This puzzled him. After a
moment he had an inspiration: "That is the same as a Free Thinker?"--I

explained in French that it wasn't and that mon père was a holy man. At
last Monsieur told the moustache to write: Protestant; and the
moustache obediently did so.
From this point on our conversation was carried on in French,
somewhat to the chagrin of Monsieur, but to the joy of the rosette and
with the approval of the moustache. In answer to questions, I informed
them that I was a student for five years at Harvard (expressing great
surprise that they had never heard of Harvard), that