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262 I knew it was, and therefore replied with a carefully childish ignorance: "Spain? Indeed! Very interesting."

"You want to escape from France, that's it?" the Directeur snarled.

"Oh, I hardly should say that!" the Surveillant interposed soothingly; "he is an artist, and Oloron is a very pleasant place for an artist. A very nice place, I hardly think his choice of Oloron a cause for suspicion. I should think it a very natural desire on his part."—His superior subsided snarling.

After a few more questions I signed some papers which lay on the desk, and was told by Apollyon to get out.

"When can I expect to leave?" I asked the Surveillant.

"Oh, it's only a matter of days, of weeks perhaps," he assured me benignantly.

"You'll leave when it's proper for you to leave!" Apollyon burst out. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, indeed. Thank you very much," I replied with a bow, and exited. On the way to The Enormous Room the Black Holster said to me sharply:

"Vous allez partir?"

"Oui."

He gave me such a look as would have turned a mahogany piano leg into a mound of smoking ashes, and slammed the key into the lock.

—Everyone gathered about me. "What news?"

"I have asked to go to Oloron as a suspect," I answered.

"You should have taken my advice and asked to go to Cannes," the fat Alsatian reproached me. He had indeed spent a great while advising me; but I trusted the little Machine-Fixer.

"Parti?" Jean le Nègre said with huge eyes, touching me gently.

"No, no. Later, perhaps; not now," I assured him. And he patted my shoulder and smiled, "Bon!" And we smoked a cigarette in honour of the snow, of which Jean—in contrast