Page:The Enormous Room.pdf/221

210 crying "goo-d ni-te"; whose favourite joke is "une section pour les femmes," which he shouts occasionally in the cour as he lifts his paper-soled slippers and stamps in the freezing mud, chuckling and blowing his nose on the Union Jack ... and now Fritz, beaming with joy, shakes hands and thanks us all and says to me "Good-bye, Johnny," and waves and is gone forever—and behind me I hear a timid voice

"monsieur, Liberté?"

and I say Yes, feeling that Yes in my belly and in my head at the same instant; and Surplice stands beside me, quietly marvelling, extremely happy, uncaring that le parti did not think to say good-bye to him. Or it may be Harree and Pompom who are running to and fro shaking hands with everybody in the wildest state of excitement, and I hear a voice behind me:

"Liberté, monsieur? Liberté?"

and I say, No. Précigne, feeling weirdly depressed, and Surplice is standing to my left, contemplating the departure of the incorrigibles with interested disappointment—Surplice of whom no man takes any notice when that man leaves, be it for Hell or Paradise....

And once a week the maître de chambre throws soap on the mattresses, and I hear a voice

"monsieur, voulez pas?"

and Surplice is asking that we give him our soap to wash with.

Sometimes, when he has made quelques sous by washing for others, he stalks quietly to the Butcher's chair (everyone else who wants a shave having been served) and receives with shut eyes and a patient expression the blade of The Butcher's dullest razor—for The Butcher is not a man to waste a good razor on Surplice; he, The Butcher, as we call him, the successor of The Frog (who one day somehow managed to disappear like his predecessor The Barber), being a thug and a burglar fond of telling us pleasantly about German towns and prisons, prisons where men are not allowed to smoke, clean