"My curiosity is keen to know how you got over here."
"I flew over," Irving replied.
"How could you manage that? Were you in the air service?"
"Yes, during the last few weeks. I was out with a pilot last night and slipped away with a parachute in the heat of the battle."
It was the brigadier general's turn now to utter something of the explosive character of an oath. As Irving's schooling and recent drill in the Teutonic tongue did not comprehend such ultra-rhetorical figures of speech, he did not get the full significance of the expletive.
But it was evident that the officer's outburst was anything but an expression of anger. Admiration popped into his eyes and spoke out of them in "violent harmony" with his oath. But this overflowing endorsement of the spy's activities was suddenly interrupted by a change of manner that caused Irving a little uneasiness as a new thought took possession of the burly military man's mind.
"What do you suppose they think about you now over in the Canadian lines? They're onto you now, aren't they? If we want you to return on another mission over there, you've spoiled the game by your manner of escape, haven't you? How could you explain it if they put you on the grill?"
"That'll be very easy," Irving replied. "I waited for the right conditions. We got into a fight with a couple of German planes and it was looking pretty bad for us. Then a shell from an anti-aircraft gun exploded so near to us that it seemed impossible for us to have escaped serious damage. Well, two seconds later I saw the pilot was having trouble with his engine; so I concluded it was time for me to take my departure."
The look of gleeful admiration returned to the officer's face.
"You handled it well, very well," he said, with a disagreeable, gloating laugh.