“Well, I’ll never be happy till I learn what it was,” asserted the aggrieved Giraffe, “if I’d been one of the Greeks they tell you to beware of, bearing gifts, they couldn’t have acted worse. Yes, there must have been a reason. And what hurts me worst of all is that I’m still as hungry as ever.”
They continued to speculate with regard to the strange thing that had happened, but none of them could hit upon any plausible cause. Later on they happened to hear something that gave Giraffe a clue upon which he worked assiduously.
Many wild stories were in circulation at that time when the German armies were threatening Paris again. One of the most extravagant of these was to the effect that some monster German airships had set out for the French capital, intending to drop bombs, and create a reign of terror back of the French lines, so as to cause Joffre to give way.
It may have been that some gossipy neighbor had just been telling them a wonderful story about certain daring vandals who had been lowered from these gigantic Teuton dirigibles, with orders to terrorize the whole country by starting fires and creating a panic. Just then they saw Giraffe running toward them, waving his arms in a strange way. It was like setting a match to a train of powder. They saw in this stranger one of the hated and feared German monsters of whom mothers had been talking for many years when children had to be subdued. And inspired by a mad desire to capture or destroy the stranger, who had evidently left the car, and run back so as to set fire to their houses, they had started toward Giraffe with all that hostile outbreak.
It seemed a rather “fishy” explanation taken in all, even Giraffe was bound to admit; and yet not altogether impossible. In those black days when the invaders were rushing toward Paris many stories just as improbable found ready listeners, and were fully believed by the credulous peasants.
They were all pleased when they could no longer catch that angry chorus of cries and hoots. As for Giraffe, he shuddered a little to contemplate what might have happened had he ever allowed those excited peasants to surround him, unable to speak their language as he was. Going hungry might be bad enough, but it was not a circumstance to being man-handled by a mob.
“I wonder what next?” Bumpus was saying. “It seems that we just have to work our way along as we go. Didn’t I say the last lap was always the hardest of all to cover? We’re got time for a whole lot more adventures before we enter Paris.”
“I’m looking to see some sign of that much traveled highway ahead of us,” Giraffe mentioned a few minutes later. “Seems to me we had ought to be nearly across country by this time. When we get out from behind those trees I calculate we’ll be able to glimpse something worth while.”
Once again was Giraffe correct. No sooner had they cleared the obstruction to their view than they discovered the road in question. It stood out in plain sight, and there were as usual quite a number of vehicles passing back and forth in regular procession. Everybody seemed more or less excited. From this fact Giraffe expressed the belief that the news of the great French victory must have been passed along, so that it was already common property. Men called out to one another, and in their voluble French fashion cried, “Vive la France! vive Joffre!”
“Well,” said Giraffe, “we’re coming to the road, all right, but there’s another little trouble imp laying for us at the corner. If you look sharp you can see some men in army blue standing there; and they’ve already got their eyes on this fine car. It wouldn’t surprise me much if they wanted to take the same away from us, Thad. Bumpus, you said you could walk it, if you had to; so I advise you to get ready for business. There, that means for us to haul up; and that man in the lead looks savage enough to bite your head off, Bumpus; so be careful what you say!”