When the military policemen first came upon him in the Gare du Nord he made a picture worth looking at. For he stood above six-feet-two in his soleless and broken brogans, and he was as black as a coal-hole at twelve o'clock at night during a total eclipse of the moon and he was as broad across between the shoulders as the back of a hack. He wore a khaki shirt, a pair of ragged, blue overalls and an ancient campaign hat. He didn't appear to be going anywhere in particular; he was just standing there.
Now the M. P.9 have a little scheme for trapping deserters and malingerers. They edge close up behind a suspect and then one of them snaps out “Shun!” in the tones of a drill-officer. If the fellow really is a truant from service, force of habit and the shock of surprise together make him come to attention and then he's a gone gosling, marching off the calaboose with steel jewelry on both his wrists.
But when this pair slipped nearer and nearer until they could touch the big darky, and one of them barked the command right in his ear, he merely turned his head and without straightening his languid form inquired politely;
“Speakin' to me, Boss?”
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, one of them asked for his papers.
“Whut kinder papers?”
“Your military papers—your pass—something to identify you by.”
“W'y, Boss,” he asked, “does you need papers to go round wid yere in Sant Nazare?” “This ain't St. Nazare,” they told him. “This is Paris.”
“Paris? My Lawd! Den dat 'splains it.”