“I am!”
“And why do you think that? Isn’t there any one here better than you are?”
“You ask me what I think. Very well, I answer that I won’t give the first place to any one.”
“You’re right. And the miller, what sort of a man is he?”
“The miller?”
The soldier blew out of his mouth a cloud of smoke that looked as large in the moonlight as the tail of a white horse. Then he eyed the devil askance and asked:
“You’re not a Customs officer, are you?”
“No!”
“And you’re not in the police—a detective, by any chance?”
“No, no, I tell you! What, a clever chap like you, and you can’t even see when a man’s just an ordinary fellow and when he isn’t?”