The gendarmes politely but regretfully agreed that it was impracticable for Burley to get a crack at a Hun; and the American presently took himself off to the corral, after distributing cigarettes and establishing cordial relations with the Sainte Lesse Gendarmerie. He waked up a negro and inspected the mules; that took a long time. Then he sought out the negro blacksmith, awoke him, and wrote out some directions. "The idea is," he explained, "that whenever the French in this sector need mules they draw on our corral. We are supposed to keep ten or eleven hundred mules here all the time and look after them. Shipments come every two weeks, I believe. So after you’ve had another good nap, George, you wake up your boys and get busy. And there’ll be trouble if things are not in running order by tomorrow night." "Yas, suh, Mistuh Burley," nodded the sleepy blacksmith, still blinking in the afternoon sunshine. "And if you need an interpreter," added Burley, "always call on me until you learn French enough to get on. Understand, George?" "Yas, suh." "Because," said Burley, walking away, "a thorough knowledge of French idioms is necessary to prevent mistakes. When in doubt always apply to me, George, for only a master of the language is competent to deal with these French people." It was his one vanity, his one weakness. Perhaps, because he so ardently desired proficiency, he had already deluded himself with the belief that he was a master of French. So, belt and loaded holster sagging, and large silver spurs clicking and clinking at every step, John Burley sauntered back along the almost deserted street of Sainte Lesse, thinking sometimes of his mules, sometimes of the French language, and every now and then of a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl whose delicately flushed and pensive gaze he had encountered as he had ridden into Sainte Lesse under the old belfry. "Stick Smith’s a fool," he thought to himself impatiently. "Tray chick doesn’t mean ’some chicken.’ It means a pretty girl, in French." He looked up at the belfry as he passed under it, and at the same moment, from beneath the high, gilded dragon which crowned its topmost spire, a sweet bell-note floated, another, others succeeding in crystalline sweetness, linked in a fragment of some ancient melody. Then they ceased; then came a brief silence; the great bell he had heard before struck five times. "Lord!--that’s pretty," he murmured, moving on and turning into the arched tunnel which was the entrance to the White Doe Inn. Wandering at random, he encountered the innkeeper in the parlour, studying a crumpled newspaper through horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose. "Tray jolie," said Burley affably, seating himself with an idea of further practice in French. "_Plait-il?_" "The bells--tray beau!" The old man straightened his bent shoulders a little proudly.