And contrary to all precedent Bakahenzie rose and left. Within a quarter of an hour his voice announced that slaves with the magic “things” were without the palisade, and called upon Mungongo to go to the gate to fetch them as strangers were forbidden even to look upon the King-God. Birnier, by the light of a torch, opened the mail, sent a wad of letters and a sheaf of telegraph slips on to the floor, and snatched a long green envelope scrawled in French characters:
Monsieur le Curateur du Jardin des Plantes.
For a moment he stared at it perplexedly, for there was no stamp or cancellation.
“What in the name——” he muttered as he slit it open.
Entebbe,
Août 13, 19—
Mon petit loup, what have you been doing? Oû est tu? Comment et pourquoi? Oh, I am cross with you, with Monsieur le Professeur! Why do you write me so ridiculous a letter? I laugh, but always [pg 303] I laugh, so what good is that to you? I will not reply to your letter, mon vieux—jamais. But I will tell you so that you may know why I am here. Yes, parmi les animaux!
Birnier winced at the phrase which seemed to come back at him like a boomerang from the lips of zu Pfeiffer.
I am to go for vacation to Wiesbaden with some very terrible peoples. Oh, on me dégoûte! I have an engagement for the winter in Berlin as before. I have engagement for Paris—eh! but—pouf! Figure me on the charming Mauretania and I am sitting on the deck where you once made yourself so ridiculous. Rappelle toi? I am sick—No, mon vieux, pas du mal de mer! I should not be for everybody to look at. Oh, no! I am sick, I tell you. Je rêve de mon petit coco parmi les sales animaux! Je me dis: Zut! il est fou! il est tapé! Mais en moi même je l’adore! Tout de suite I tell a creature who brings me my books, my fan, un espèce de tapette, je m’en vais là, moi! He ask me where? I tell him I go to look for mon amant in Afrique Centrale! Mais oui! He thinks I am mad! I tell him so and I laugh! How I laugh. But he is right, yes, je suis folle—de toi!
Alors I come to Marseilles and I catch a boat to Mombassa. Ouf! Je vais mourir à cause de mon petit loup! La mer rouge! Quel cauchemar! Enfin I still arrive what of Lucille is left and I ask for you, for Monsieur le Professeur Americain, but no one knows you. On the boat I have attached to myself trois mousquetaires Anglais. Tous les trois sont drôles! [pg 304] They bring me on the ever so funny little train to here. Entebbe. Les Anglais sont très polis, tu sais! Monsieur le Gouverneur stop drinking whisky politely to tell me that Monsieur has been and has gone! Quelle horreur! You have gone but three days! Pense tu! I ask myself what have I done that the bon Dieu should be so unkind. Then quel malheur! I remember to myself that I commence to come to you on Friday! You laugh! Yes, I laugh too but—Quien sabe? I commence to come to you on a Friday and you are gone three little days!
Then my good friends, les trois mousquetaires, send for me a what they call a runner—the red peas—C’est drôle! but the little pea black he did not find you. He brings a message that you had gone to some place with a terrible name.