Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/309

Rh man, and an assaulted, battered and outraged superior.…

The croaking voice of Tant-de-Soif broke the silence. "Pour vous," quoth he, "il n'y a plus que l'Enfer."

"Shut up, you ugly old crow," replied Reginald Rupert, "and clear out.… Look here, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to say?"

"I?" enquired Tant-de-Soif. "Le Légionnaire Djoolte and I have seen each other in the Bar de Madagascar off the Rue de Daya the whole evening. We have been here peaudezébie. Is it not, my Djoolte? Eh, mon salop?"

But the sturdy Dutch boy was of a different moral fibre.

"I have not been in the Bar de Madagascar," replied he, in halting Legion French. "I have been in le Café de la Légion the whole evening and seen all that happened."

"’E's a-seekin' sorrer. 'E wants a fick ear," put in 'Erb in his own vernacular.

"If my evidence is demanded, I saw a fair fight between the Légionnaire Bouckaing Bronceau and le Légionnaire Luigi Rivoli. I then saw le Légionnaire Luigi Rivoli fall dead, having been stabbed by either le Légionnaire Malvin or le Légionnaire Bauer, if it were not le Légionnaire Hirsch, or le Légionnaire Borges. I believe Malvin stabbed him while these three held him, but I do not know. I then saw le Sergent Legros enter and assault and abuse Mam'zelle Carmelita. I then saw him fall as though someone had struck him and he then attempted to murder le Légionnaire Bronco with his Rosalie. I then saw