Page:The Enormous Room.pdf/211

200 "Jew" in a highly derogatory sense) its effect upon the noble Sheeney was definitely unpleasant. But when coupled with the word "moskosi," accent on the second syllable or long o, its effect was more than unpleasant—it was really disagreeable. At intervals throughout the day, on promenade, of an evening, the ugly phrase

"MOS-ki mosKOsi"

resounded through The Enormous Room. The Fighting Sheeney, then rapidly convalescing from syphilis, bided his time. The Young Pole moreover had a way of jesting upon the subject of The Sheeney's infirmity. He would, particularly during the afternoon promenade, shout various none too subtle allusions to Moshki's physical condition for the benefit of les femmes. And in response would come peals of laughter from the girls' windows, shrill peals and deep guttural peals intersecting and breaking joints like overlapping shingles on the roof of Craziness. So hearty did these responses become one afternoon that, in answer to loud pleas from the injured Moshki, the pimply sergeant de plantons himself came to the gate in the barbed wire fence and delivered a lecture upon the seriousness of venereal ailments (heart-felt, I should judge by the looks of him), as follows:

"Il ne faut pas rigoler de ça. Savez-vous? C'est une maladie, ça,"

which little sermon contrasted agreeably with his usual remarks concerning, and in the presence of, les femmes, whereof the essence lay in a single phrase of prepositional significance—

"bon pour coucher avec" he would say shrilly, his puny eyes assuming an expression of amorous wisdom which was most becoming....

One day we were all upon afternoon promenade, (it being beau temps for that part of the world), under the auspices of by all odds one of the littlest and mildest and most delicate specimens of mankind that ever donned the high and dangerous duties of a planton. As B. says: "He always looked like a June bride." This mannikin could not have been five feet high, was perfectly proportioned (unless we except the musket