"His company is quartered in the Albern Woods."
"But that's next door to the frontier!" cried Morestal. "An hour's walk, no more."
"Just so; but how he is to reach the frontier? Where is he to cross it?"
"That's quite easy," said Morestal, taking up a pencil and a sheet of note-paper. "Look, here are the Albern Woods. Here's the Col du Diable. Here's the Butte-aux-Loups.... Well, he's only got to leave the woods by the Fontaine-Froide and take the first path to the left, by the Roche de ..."
He suddenly interrupted himself, looked at Dourlowski with a suspicious air and said:
"But you know the road as well as I do ... there's no doubt about that.... So ..."
"My word," said Dourlowski, "I always go by the Col du Diable and the factory."
Morestal reflected for a moment, scribbled a few lines and a few words in an absent-minded sort of way and then, with a movement of quick resolution, took the sheet of note-paper, crumpled it into a ball and flung it into the waste-paper basket:
"No, no, certainly not!" he cried. "I've had enough of this nonsense! One succeeds four times; and, at the fifth attempt.... Besides, it's not a business I care about.... A soldier's a soldier ... whatever uniform he wears...."