“Come on,” I said. “You’re pie-eyed.”
“Pretty nice stuffed dogs,” Bill said. “Certainly brighten up your flat.”
“Come on.”
“Just one stuffed dog. I can take ’em or leave ’em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog.”
“Come on.”
“Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog.”
“We’ll get one on the way back.”
“All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”
We went on.
“How’d you feel that way about dogs so sudden?”
“Always felt that way about dogs. Always been a great lover of stuffed animals.”
We stopped and had a drink.
“Certainly like to drink,” Bill said. “You ought to try it some times, Jake.”
“You’re about a hundred and forty-four ahead of me.”
“Ought not to daunt you. Never be daunted. Secret of my success. Never been daunted. Never been daunted in public.”
“Where were you drinking?”
“Stopped at the Crillon. George made me a couple of Jack Roses. George’s a great man. Know the secret of his success? Never been daunted.”
“You’ll be daunted after about three more pernods.”
“Not in public. If I begin to feel daunted I’ll go off by myself. I’m like a cat that way.”
“When did you see Harvey Stone?”
“At the Crillon. Harvey was just a little daunted. Hadn’t eaten for three days. Doesn’t eat any more. Just goes off like a cat. Pretty sad.”
“He’s all right.”
“Splendid. Wish he wouldn’t keep going off like a cat, though. Makes me nervous.”
“What’ll we do to-night?”
“Doesn’t make any difference. Only let’s not get daunted. Suppose they got any hard-boiled eggs here? If they had hard-boiled eggs here we wouldn’t have to go all the way down to the island to eat.”
“Nix,” I said. “We’re going to have a regular meal.”
“Just a suggestion,” said Bill. “Want to start now?”
“Come on.”
We started on again down the Boulevard. A horse-cab passed us. Bill looked at it.
“See that horse-cab? Going to have that horse-cab stuffed for you for Christmas. Going to give all my friends stuffed animals. I’m a nature-writer.”
A taxi passed, some one in it waved, then banged for the driver to stop. The taxi backed up to the curb. In it was Brett.
“Beautiful lady,” said Bill. “Going to kidnap us.”
“Hullo!” Brett said. “Hullo!”
“This is Bill Gorton. Lady Ashley.”
Brett smiled at Bill. “I say I’m just back. Haven’t bathed even. Michael comes in to-night.”
“Good. Come on and eat with us, and we’ll all go to meet him.”
“Must clean myself.”
“Oh, rot! Come on.”
“Must bathe. He doesn’t get in till nine.”
“Come and have a drink, then, before you bathe.”
“Might do that. Now you’re not talking rot.”
We got in the taxi. The driver looked around.
“Stop at the nearest bistro,” I said.
“We might as well go to the Closerie,” Brett said. “I can’t drink these rotten brandies.”
“Closerie des Lilas.”
Brett turned to Bill.
“Have you been in this pestilential city long?”
“Just got in to-day from Budapest.”
“How was Budapest?”
“Wonderful. Budapest was wonderful.”
“Ask him about Vienna.”
“Vienna,” said Bill, “is a strange city.”
“Very much like Paris,” Brett smiled at him, wrinkling the corners of her eyes.
“Exactly,” Bill said. “Very much like Paris at this moment.”
“You have a good start.”
Sitting out on the terraces of the Lilas Brett ordered a whiskey and soda, I took one, too, and Bill took another pernod.
“How are you, Jake?”
“Great,” I said. “I’ve had a good time.”
Brett looked at me. “I was a fool to go away,” she said. “One’s an ass to leave Paris.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Oh, all right. Interesting. Not frightfully amusing.”
“See anybody?”
“No, hardly anybody. I never went out.”
“Didn’t you swim?”
“No. Didn’t do a thing.”
“Sounds like Vienna,” Bill said.
Brett wrinkled up the corners of her eyes at him.
“So that’s the way it was in Vienna.”
“It was like everything in Vienna.”
Brett smiled at him again.
“You’ve a nice friend, Jake.”
“He’s all right,” I said. “He’s a taxidermist.”
“That was in another country,” Bill said. “And besides all the animals were dead.”
“One more,” Brett said, “and I must run. Do send the waiter for a taxi.”
“There’s a line of them. Right out in front.”
“Good.”
We had the drink and put Brett into her taxi.
“Mind you’re at the Select around ten. Make him come. Michael will be there.”
“We’ll be there,” Bill said. The taxi started and Brett waved.
“Quite a girl,” Bill said. “She’s damned nice. Who’s Michael?”
“The man she’s going to marry.”
“Well, well,” Bill said. “That’s always just the stage I meet anybody. What’ll I send them? Think they’d like a couple of stuffed race-horses?”
“We better eat.”
“Is she really Lady something or other?” Bill asked in the taxi on our way down to the Ile Saint Louis.
“Oh, yes. In the stud-book and everything.”
“Well, well.”
We ate dinner at Madame Lecomte’s restaurant on the far side of the island. It was crowded with Americans and we had to stand up and wait for a place. Some one had put it in the American Women’s Club list as a quaint restaurant on the Paris quais as yet untouched by Americans, so we had to wait forty-five minutes for a table. Bill had eaten at the restaurant in 1918, and right after the armistice, and Madame Lecomte made a great fuss over
