He asked me: "Have you anything in your shoes?"

"My feet," I said, gently.

"Come this way," he said frigidly, opening a door which I had not
remarked. I bowed in acknowledgment of the courtesy, and entered room
number 2.

I looked into six eyes which sat at a desk.

Two belonged to a lawyerish person in civilian clothes, with a bored
expression, plus a moustache of dreamy proportions with which the owner
constantly imitated a gentleman ringing for a drink. Two appertained to a
splendid old dotard (a face all ski-jumps and toboggan slides), on whose
protruding chest the rosette of the Legion pompously squatted. Numbers
five and six had reference to Monsieur, who had seated himself before I
had time to focus my slightly bewildered eyes.

Monsieur spoke sanitary English, as I have said.

"What is your name?"--"Edward E. Cummings."

--"Your second name?"--"E-s-t-l-i-n," I spelled it for him.--"How do you
say that?"--I didn't understand.--"How do you say your name?"--"Oh," I
said; and pronounced it. He explained in French to the moustache that my
first name was Edouard, my second "A-s-tay-l-ee-n," and my third
"Kay-umm-ee-n-gay-s"--and the moustache wrote it all down. Monsieur then
turned to me once more:

"You are Irish?"--"No," I said, "American."--"You are Irish by