We were still conversing with the Belgian girl when a man came out of the door unsteadily, looking as if he had submitted to several strenuous fittings of a wooden leg upon a stump not quite healed. The Wooden Hand, nodding at B., remarked hurriedly in a low voice:
“Allez!”
And B. (smiling at La Belge and at me) entered. He was followed by The Wooden Hand, as I suppose for greater security.
The next twenty minutes, or whatever it was, were by far the most nerve-racking which I had as yet experienced. La Belge said to me:
“Il est gentil, votre ami,”
and I agreed. And my blood was bombarding the roots of my toes and the summits of my hair.
After (I need not say) two or three million aeons, B. emerged. I had not time to exchange a look with him—let alone a word—for the Wooden Hand said from the doorway:
“Allez, l’autre américain,”
and I entered in more confusion than can easily be imagined; entered the torture chamber, entered the inquisition, entered the tentacles of that sly and beaming polyp, le gouvernement français….
As I entered I said, half aloud: The thing is this, to look ’em in the eyes and keep cool whatever happens, not for the fraction of a moment forgetting that they are made of merde, that they are all of them composed entirely of merde—I don’t know how many inquisitors I expected to see; but I guess I was ready for at least fifteen, among them President Poincaré Lui-même. I hummed noiselessly: