“Pencil?” T-c looked at T-c.
They recited then the following word: “To-morrow.” Klang and footsteps.
So I took matches, burnt, and with just 60 of them wrote the first
stanza of a ballade. To-morrow I will write the second. Day after
to-morrow the third. Next day the refrain. After—oh, well.
My whistling of Petroushka brought no response this evening.
So I climbed on _Ça Pue_, whom I now regarded with complete
friendliness; the new moon was unclosing sticky wings in dusk, a far
noise from near things.
I sang a song the “dirty Frenchmen” taught us, _mon ami et moi_. The
song says _Bon soir, Madame de la Lune_…. I did not sing out loud,
simply because the moon was like a mademoiselle, and I did not want to
offend the moon. My friends: the silhouette and _la lune_, not counting
_Ça Pue_, whom I regarded almost as a part of me.
Then I lay down, and heard (but could not see the silhouette eat
something or somebody) … and saw, but could not hear, the incense of
_Ça Pue_ mount gingerly upon the taking air of twilight.
The next day.—Promise to M. Savy. Whang. “My pencil?”—“You don’t need
any pencil, you’re going away.”—“When?”—“Directly.”—“How directly?”—“In
an hour or two: your friend has already gone before. Get ready.”
Klang and steps.
Everyone very sore about me. I should worry, however.
One hour, I guess.
Steps. Sudden throwing of door open. Pause.
“Come out, American.”
As I came out, toting bed and bed-roll, I remarked: “I’m sorry to leave
you,” which made T-c furiously to masticate his insignificant
moustache.
Escorted to _bureau_, where I am turned over to a very fat _gendarme_.
“This is the American.” The v-f-g eyed me, and I read my sins in his
porklike orbs. “Hurry, we have to walk,” he ventured sullenly and
commandingly.
Himself stooped puffingly to pick up the segregated sack. And I placed
my bed, bed-roll, blankets and ample _pelisse_ under one arm, my
150-odd pound duffle-bag under the other; then I paused. Then I said,
“Where’s my cane?”
The v-f-g hereat had a sort of fit, which perfectly became him.