"Very well, sir, I can only say that you will be sorry for this decision," he said. "I have a fountain pen—will somebody kindly lend me a sheet of paper?"
One of the officers at the table handed him a blank form, at the same time offering his cigarette-case.
"No, thanks, I won't smoke," said the boy, and, sitting down on a billet of wood, he laid the paper on his knee.
"Dear Pater," he wrote with a steady hand. "It seems a rotten thing to have to tell you, but the French are going to shoot me for a spy. The fool man in command here, who was probably a successful pork butcher before the war started, declines to communicate with headquarters, and I rather hope you'll rub it into him when you learn all. It seems I speak German too well, and I should not be surprised if the sham English 'brass hat' who upset them last night were that scoundrel, Van Drissel, whom I nearly shot."
He got thus far, the Alsatian corporal standing rigidly at his elbow, when he became aware of a bustle at the table, and looked up.
A French liaison officer had just arrived, and was explaining his mission to the group, while the commandant read a dispatch he had brought.
Dennis sprang to his feet, and the laugh which brought the corporal's grip on to his collar again turned every eye towards him.
"Good morning, mon Capitaine!" he cried. "Will you be good enough to tell the commandant the circumstances under which we met last night, and why I came to your headquarters with a message?"
"My dear lieutenant," said the liaison officer. "Enchanted to meet you again! But what in the name of heaven has happened to you?"
"Nothing to what was going to happen in a few minutes if you had not arrived," replied Dennis, unable to repress the triumph he felt at the consternation in the faces of his judges.