“Possibly,” he remarked, dryly.
“Ah,” I said, with a smile, “you do not appreciate. You are English.”
“I am,” he replied. “And you are French, I suppose?”
At his words, suspicion woke in my heart. It was only as a Frenchman that I ran the risk of arrest.
“No; I am an American.”
This was my first attempt to disclaim my nationality, and each time I denied my country I, like St. Peter, suffered for it. Fair France, your lovers should be true! That is the lesson.
“Indeed,” was all he said; but I now began to enjoy my first experience of that disconcerting phenomenon, the English stare. Later on I discovered that this generally means nothing, and is, in fact, merely an inherited relic of the days when each Englishman carried his “knuckle-duster” (a weapon used in boxing), and struck the instant his neighbor's attention was diverted. It is thanks to this peculiarity that they now find themselves in possession of so large a portion of the globe, but the surviving stare is not a reassuring spectacle.