A crowd of gendarmes gathered. One didn’t take a cane with one to prison (I was glad to know where I was bound, and thanked this communicative gentleman); or criminals weren’t allowed canes; or where exactly did I think I was, in the Tuileries? asks a rube movie-cop personage.
“Very well, gentlemen,” I said. “You will allow me to tell you something.” (I was beet-colored.) “In America that sort of thing isn’t done.”
This haughty inaccuracy produced an astonishing effect, namely, the prestidigitatorial vanishment of the v-f-g. The v-f-g’s numerous confrères looked scared and twirled their whiskers.
I sat on the curb and began to fill a paper with something which I found in my pockets, certainly not tobacco.
Splutter-splutter-fizz-Poop—the v-f-g is back, with my oak-branch in his raised hand, slithering opprobria and mostly crying: “Is that huge piece of wood what you call a cane? It is, is it? What? How? What the—,” so on.
I beamed upon him and thanked him, and explained that a “dirty Frenchman” had given it to me as a souvenir, and that I would now proceed.
Twisting the handle in the loop of my sack, and hoisting the vast parcel under my arm, I essayed twice to boost it on my back. This to the accompaniment of HurryHurryHurryHurryHurryHurryHurry…. The third time I sweated and staggered to my feet, completely accoutred.
Down the road. Into the ville. Curious looks from a few pedestrians. A driver stops his wagon to watch the spider and his outlandish fly. I chuckled to think how long since I had washed and shaved. Then I nearly fell, staggered on a few steps, and set down the two loads.
Perhaps it was the fault of a strictly vegetarian diet. At any rate, I couldn’t move a step farther with my bundles. The sun sent the sweat along my nose in tickling waves. My eyes were blind.
Hereupon I suggested that the v-f-g carry part of one of my bundles with me, and received the answer: “I am doing too much for you as it is. No gendarme is supposed to carry a prisoner’s baggage.”