The corporal in the inhospitable third-class of the Verdun train made mental pictures of Vinson's progress south. He talked to himself aloud.
"Good journey to you, you jolly dog!... In six weeks' time, if you have a thought to spare for me, you will send your news as we arranged!"
The corporal began breathing warm breaths on his numbed fingers.
"By Jove! The company is not prodigal of foot-warmers, that's certain! It's an ice-house in here!"
He continued to soliloquise:
"It's a deuce of a risky business I have let myself in for!... To take Vinson's place, and set off for Verdun, where his regiment is doing garrison duty, the regiment to which he has just been attached!... It would run as smooth as oil if I had done my military service, but, owing to circumstances, I have never been called up!... A pretty sort of fool I may make of myself!"...
After a reflective silence, he went on:
"Bah! I shall pull through all right! Have I not crammed my head with theory the last eight days, and pumped Vinson for all he was worth about the rules and regulations, and the ways of camp life!... All the same ... to make my début in an Eastern garrison, in the 'Iron Division,' straight off the reel takes some nerve!... What cheek!... It's the limit!... But, my dear little Fandor, don't forget you are at Verdun not to play the complete soldier but to gather exact information about a band of traitors, and to unmask them at the first opportunity—a work of national importance, little Fandor, and don't you forget it!"
Thus our adventurous Vinson-Fandor lay shivering in the night train on the point of drawing up at Verdun.
Having saved the wretched Vinson from suicide, Fandor had made him promise to leave France and await developments, whilst Fandor, posing as Vinson, studied at close quarters the spies who had drawn the miserable corporal into their net. Fandor could personate Vinson with every chance of success, because the 257th of the line had never set eyes on the corporal.