“Oh, God, Ben—you didn’t!” I exclaimed, thinking at once of the possible trouble that might come, if Pierre got mad.
“Yes, I did,” he insisted. “And I gave him a punch in the jaw for good measure, the dirty b——!”
Well, Esky was still alive, but he hadn’t showed any signs of improvement.... I was just sick all over.... Probably Esky would die and Pierre would be mad and tell on us, and everything would be ruined.... And poor Ben couldn’t understand why I was sorry he punched Pierre’s head.
—5—
At last the vet said Esky was going to pull through, with any luck at all, and Ben and the General, and even Chilblaines, were all happy as kids. So was I.
But I stopped at Lisa’s in the evening and Pierre lit into me for all his troubles. He had a black eye and he was mad through at all of us.... Lisa said she wished we hadn’t told him the truth yet, and I suppose it would have been better if we had stayed away from the place altogether.
Well, everything seemed to go wrong at once.... I was working like a nigger. My head ached from taking dictation and my fingers ached from punching the typewriter. But thank heavens, we were about done here.... We’d move over to Orléans in an other day or so.
And then back to Paris—to Captain Winstead—to Jay-Jay—to God knows what else.
—6—
At Orléans a letter came from Leon. The contents tell the story as well as I could: