“Nobody really knows it but me,” retorted Lanny. “Uncle Jesse only thinks he knows it.”
Robbie's sense of humor wasn't operating just then. “Will you two please agree which is going to talk?”
Said Lanny, quickly: “I think we'd all three better wait until we get back to the hotel.” He made a motion of the ringer toward the taxi driver in front of them. To be sure, they were speaking English — but then the driver might have been a waiter at Mouquin's on Sixth Avenue before the war. The two men fell silent; and Lanny remarked: “Well, I heard the guns. Has the treaty really been signed?”
V
When they were safely locked in their suite, Robbie got out his whisky bottle, which the flics hadn't taken. He had been under a severe strain, and took a nip without waiting for the soda and ice; so did the painter. Lanny had been under a longer strain than either of them, but he waited for the ginger beer, for he wasn't yet of age, and moreover he thought that his father was drinking too much, and was anxious not to encourage him. Meanwhile the youth strolled casually about the suite, looking into the bathroom and the closets and under the beds; he didn't know just how a dictograph worked, but he looked everywhere for any wires. After the bellboy had departed, the ex-prisoner opened the door and looked out. He was in a melodramatic mood.
At last they were settled, and the father said: “Now, please, may I have the honor of knowing about this affair?”
“First,” said Lanny, with a grin, “let me shut Uncle Jesse up. Uncle Jesse, you remember the Christmas before the war, I paid a visit to Germany?”
“I heard something about it.”
“I was staying with a friend of mine. Better not to use names. That friend was in Paris until recently, and he was the man who came to call on you at midnight.”
“Oh, so that's it!” exclaimed the painter.