"You say you are a non-combatant, and that is better than I could have expected. You English as a rule are singularly averse to our propaganda. But wait and see how affairs order themselves."
"It will be a long time to wait. I'm afraid you'll never find the Recipe."
I had risen to my legs to say good-bye. Taltavull gripped my hand in his bony fingers. "You don't know me, Monsieur Cospatric. We anarchists never give in. I shall not cease searching for this Recipe till I find it, or until I learn for certain that it has been destroyed. Buenas noches."
"Good-night," said I, and went out into the moonlight. My little Frenchman had gone long ago, and so I strolled alone down the steep cobbled street, conning over many things. Verily this life is full of strange coincidences.
Haigh was at the hotel. I met him coming out of the room vis-à-vis to ours across the passage. We went in to our quarters, and sat in wicker-lined rocking-chairs (relic of the time when the Yankee had Port Mahon for a rendezvous), and he told me many things. "But," he concluded, "it was the music that drove me out. Those dark-eyed factory girls were just fine, and la marguerita as a dance perfection. But the orchestra was an addition I couldn't stand at any price. It was something too ghastly for words. All the brass sharp and the strings screechy. So I just skipped, came back here, and forgathered with a lone, lorn Englishman on his first trans-Channel trip. He was a splendid find. Needless to say, he's going to write a book about his travels, and as he seemed eager for information, I gave him a lot. Honestly, he's the most stupendous Juggins it's ever been my fate to meet; and that's putting the matter strongly, for since I've been—er—on the wander, I've come across most brands of fool."
"What manner of man is he to look at?"
"Oh, middle height, tweeds and cap all to match and new for the trip, big brown eyes that look at you dreamily, and a rather Jewish face. Not a bad-looking chap by any means, but oh, such a particularly verdant sort of greenhorn. The only one point on which he showed a single grain of sense was in refusing to play poker with me. He didn't want to offend me; he hoped most sincerely that I should take no offence, but a friend had extracted a promise from him before he left home to play no card games with strangers. The fact was, he was really so unskilful with cards. I wasn't offended, was I? His candour was so refreshing that I could truthfully say I was not."
I tried to talk about my evening, but Haigh would not listen. Said he: "I'm not interested in that particular kind of nonsense. If you haven't embraced the glorious principles of anarchy, old chappie, that's enough to tell. You've met a wise man who's a damned fool, and I've met a fool who, in points, is a wise man; and I prefer my own find. If you'd heard him talking about his book that is to be, you'd have stood good chance of choking with suppressed emotion. It's going to turn out a great success. He will spend quite three weeks here and in Mallorca, so as to 'do' both islands thoroughly. And then he would like to go to Iviça, but didn't know whether it was advisable to risk it. Could I advise him? Were the people there very savage? Oh, my Juggins, my Juggins, you were something too delicious for words when you got on that tack, evidently wanting authentic adventures to be enlarged upon for the great work, and obviously fearing most tremendously to encounter the same. You won't go to Iviça, I can see that; but I'd bet all I'm worth that the chapter on 'My Adventure with the Brigands' will appear with full detail. I've a bit of imagination myself, and I guess I gave you enough subject-matter to fudge it from most thrillingly."
"Hard lines to stuff the poor wretch too much."
"Not a bit of it, dear boy. The great stay-at-home B.P. will swallow the yarn chapter and verse, and know for certain that poor harmless Iviça is a den of robbers; Juggins will believe it all, smoke, flash, and report, after he has retailed it twice, and will pose as a hero; and I, I've had my amusement. You should hear him talk about the illustrations, too. He can't draw or paint; hasn't a notion of either. And he's never taken a photograph. But a friend advised him to get a hand camera of the 'Absolutely Simple' pattern, and he's been exposing plates right and left. A pro.'s to develop them when he gets home if he can succeed in passing them through the Customs, and if he doesn't get the thing confiscated for getting pictures of fortresses, both of which (he informs me) are mighty and great dangers. And, by the way, that reminds me. He got spilt off a donkey this afternoon, and damaged his nose and jolted up the camera. Being blissfully ignorant of the picture-machine's mechanisms he doesn't like to meddle with it, but 'I'm afraid something's gone inside, Mr. Haigh, because it rattles when I shake it.' So thinking I owed the chap something for the fun I'd had out of him, I said I'd get you to fix it up for him. You've been bottle-washer to a photographer for a bit, haven't you?"