Plainly enough Tourtelle was struggling within himself over something, and his visitors did not have much trouble convincing themselves what it was. But finally he settled the problem tentatively in favor of the evident inevitable and replied:
"Yes, of course, I have it here, only I hate to unpack it; but if your curiosity over a freak idea is uncontrollable, I must submit. I'm very jealous over that affair, because the average person is utterly incapable of appreciating it and would only laugh at me."
"Oh, you needn't be afraid of our doing anything of the kind," returned the lieutenant reassuringly. "We're deeply interested, both of us."
"You must be profoundly interested if you can leave your places at the battle front just to inspect a sample of what most people would call freak art. You didn't call a truce and sign an armistice just for this, did you?"
The lieutenant realized by this time, as Irving had realized before, that he was dealing with a young fellow of no puny intelligence. Tourtelle, although signifying willingness to do as requested, was evidently fencing with weapons of jest and banter, intended to be accepted as conversational pleasantry. He made no motion as yet to produce the box containing the tattooed section of skin packed in salt.
"No," the visiting officer replied quietly; "but I'm sure you won't disappoint me after I've gone to the trouble to get permission from the colonel to come here and see that remarkable curiosity that Ellis says you possess. Where is it?--under your pillow?"
Lieut. Osborne made a move as if to reach under the pillow. The patient made no motion to object; he maintained a passiveness of manner which the inspecting officer accepted as an admission as to the whereabouts of the article of interest. The next moment the box was produced from its "hiding place," for Irving and the lieutenant were certain that when Tourtelle put it under the pillow his purpose was primarily to conceal it from inquisitive eyes.
The officer opened the box and poured the contents out on a paper lying on the floor. Then he picked out the "cubist parchment" and gazed at it with deep interest.
"By the way, Lieut. Tourtelle," he said after an inspection lasting a minute or two, "would you mind telling me what these dots and dashes mean in this work of art? They look to me like letters of the Morse telegraph code."
As he spoke he looked sharply at the soldier on the cot, whose face in an instant became an interesting study of struggling effort to appear calm and curious and only superficially concerned. Irving realized, however, that Lieut. Osborne was getting down to business without any preliminary foolishness.