(unlike my companions) an education, and that I should keep myself neat
and clean and be a shining example to the filthy and ignorant--adding
slyly that the "hospital" would be an awfully nice place for me and my
friend to live, and that there we could be by ourselves like gentlemen
and have our meals served in the room, avoiding the _salle a manger_;
moreover, the food would be what we liked, delicious food, especially
cooked ... all (quoth the Surveillant with the itching palm of a Grand
Central Porter awaiting his tip) for a mere trifle or so, which if I
liked I could pay him on the spot--whereat I scornfully smiled, being
inhibited by a somewhat selfish regard for my own welfare from kicking
him through the window. To The Barber's credit be it said: he never once
solicited my trade, although the Surveillant's "_Soi-meme_" (oneself)
lectures (as B. and I referred to them) were the delight of our numerous
friends and must, through them, have reached his alert ears. He was a
good-looking quiet man of perhaps thirty, with razor-keen eyes--and
that's about all I know of him except that one day The Young Russian and
The Barber, instead of passing from the _cour_ directly to the building,
made use of a little door in an angle between the stone wall and the
kitchen; and that to such good effect that we never saw them again. Nor
were the ever-watchful guardians of our safety, the lion-hearted
_plantons_, aware of what had occurred until several hours after; despite
the fact that a ten-foot wall had been scaled, some lesser obstructions
vanquished, and a run in the open made almost (one unpatriotically minded
might be tempted to say) before their very eyes. But then--who knows? May
not the French Government deliberately have allowed them to escape,
after--through its incomparable spy system--learning that The Barber and
his young friend were about to attempt the life of the Surveillant with
an atomizer brim-full of T.N.T.? Nothing could after all be more highly
probable. As a matter of fact a couple of extra-fine razors (presented by
the _Soi-meme_-minded Surveillant to the wily coiffeur in the interests