The Firefly of France | Page 5

is full of those pirate fellows. You read
the papers--the headlines anyway; you know it as well as I. It's suicide,
no less! Those Huns sank the /San Pietro/ last week. I say, young man,
are you listening? Do you hear what I'm telling you?"
It was true that my gaze had wandered near the close of his harangue. I
like to look at my guardian; the fine old chap, with his height and
straightness, his bright blue eyes and proud silver head, is a sight for
sore eyes, as they say. But just then I had glimpsed something that was
even better worth seeing. I am not impressionable, but I must confess
that I was impressed by this girl.
She sat far down the room from me. Only her back was visible and a
somewhat blurred side-view reflected in the mirror on the wall. Even so
much was, however, more than welcome, including as it did a smooth
white neck, a small shell-like ear, and a mass of warm, crinkly, red-
brown hair. She wore a rose-colored gown, I noticed, cut low, with a
string of pearls; and her sole escort was a staid, elderly, precise being,
rather of the trusted family-lawyer type.
"I haven't missed a word, Dunny," I assured my vis-a-vis. "I was just
wondering if Huns and pirates had quite a neutral sound. You know I
have to go via Rome to spend a week with Jack Herriott. He has been
pestering me for a good two years--ever since he's been secretary
there."
Grumbling unintelligible things, my guardian sampled his Chablis; and
I, crumbling bread, lazily wishing I could get a front view of the girl in
rose-color, filled the pause by rambling on.

"Duty calls me," I declared. "You see, I was born in France. Shabby
treatment on my parents' part I've always thought it; if they had hurried
home before the event I might have been President and declared war
here instead of hunting one across the seas. In that case, Dunny, I
should have heeded your plea and stayed; but since I'm ineligible for
chief executive, why linger on this side?"
He scowled blackly.
"I'll tell you what it is, my boy," he accused, with lifted forefinger.
"You like to pose--that's what is the matter with you! You like to act
stolid, matter-of-fact, correct; you want to sit in your ambulance and
smoke cigarettes indifferently and raise your eyebrows superciliously
when shrapnel bursts round. And it's all very well now; it looks
picturesque; it looks good form, very. But how old are you, eh, Dev?
Twenty-eight is it? Twenty-nine?"
"You should know--none better--that I am thirty," I responded.
"Haven't you remembered each anniversary since I was five, beginning
with a hobby-horse and working up through knives and rifles and
ponies to the latest thing in cars?"
Dunny lowered his accusing finger and tapped it on the cloth.
"Thirty," he repeated fatefully. "All right, Dev. Strong and fit as an ox,
and a crack polo-player and a fair shot and boxer and not bad with
boats and cars and horses and pretty well off, too. So when you look
bored, it's picturesque; but wait! Wait ten years, till you take on flesh,
and the doctor puts you on diet, and you stop hunting chances to kill
yourself, but play golf like me. Then, my boy, when you look stolid
you won't be romantic. You'll be stodgy, my boy. That's what you'll
be!"
Of all words in the dictionary there is surely none worse than this one.
The suggestions of stodginess are appalling, including, even at best,
hints of overweight, general uninterestingness, and a disposition to sit
at home in smoking-jacket and slippers after one's evening meal. As my
guardian suggested, my first youth was over. I held up both my hands

in token that I asked for grace.
"/Kamerad/!" I begged pathetically. "Come, Dunny, let's be sociable.
After all, you know, it's my last evening; and if you call me such names,
you will be sorry when I am gone. By the way, speaking of Huns --it
was you, the neutral, who mentioned them,--does it strike you there are
quite a few of them on the staff of this hotel? I hope they won't poison
me. Look at the head waiter, look at half the waiters round, and see that
blond-haired, blue-eyed menial. Do you think he saw his first daylight
in these United States?"
The menial in question was a uniformed bellboy winding in and out
among tables and paging some elusive guest. As he approached, his
chant grew plainer.
"Mr. Bayne," he was droning. "Room four hundred and three."
I raised a hand in summons, and he paused beside my seat.
"Telephone call for you, sir," he informed me.
With a word to my