"England! Yes, I left England ten years ago, and if it wasn't for my poor old mother I'd never go back. Treat you as dirt, that's what the English do. That consul threw me out of his office the same as a _commissionnaire_ might throw any old two-and-four out of the Empire. Yes, they talk a lot about patriotism and all pulling one way, but when you ask a consul to lend you the price of your fare to Bucharest, you don't hear no more about patriotism. As I said to him, 'I suppose you don't think I'm English?' and he sat there grinning for answer. Yes, I reckon when they christened that talking chimpanzee at the Hippodrome 'Consul' it was done by somebody who'd had a bit of consul in his time. What's a consul for? That's what I'm asking. As I said to him, 'What are you for? Are you paid,' I said, 'to sit there smoking cigarettes for the good of your country?' 'This ain't a workhouse,' he answered, very snotty. 'You're right,' I said. 'No fear about any one ever making that mistake. Why, I reckon it's a bloody sleeping-car, I do.' And with that I slung my hook out of it. Yes, I could have been very rude to him; only it was beneath me, the uneducated la-di-da savage! Well, all he's done is to put me against my own country. That's _his_ war work." The tirade exhausted itself, and Sylvia, unwilling to be Maud's sponsor at the Petit Trianon that evening, made some excuse to leave. While she was walking across the courtyard with Lottie, she heard: "And who's she? I'll have to tell _her_ off, that's very plain. Did you see the way she looked down her nose at me? Nice thing if any one can't say what they think of a consul without being stared at like a mummy by _her_." Sylvia asked Lottie if she had known this couple long. "I've known him a year or two, but she's new. I met them coming up from the railway station this morning. The girl was stranded without any money at Galantza, and Krebs brought her on here. He's a fine juggler and conjurer. Zozo he calls himself on the stage." Sylvia's heart throbbed as she climbed the streets that led toward the high center of the city away from the hot mists below: it was imperative to get Queenie out of Rumania at once, and while she walked along she began to wonder if she could not procure an English passport, the delight of possessing which would counterbalance for Queenie the shock of hearing that the dreaded Zozo was in Bucharest. "It's such a ridiculous name for a bogy," Sylvia thought. "And the man himself was not a bit as I pictured him. I'd always imagined some one lithe and subtle. I wonder what his object was in helping that painted hussy he was with. Queer, rather." She reached the British Consulate, but was told rather severely to direct herself to the special office that occupied itself with passports. "Do you want a visa for England?" the clerk inquired. "Yes, and I also want to inquire about a new passport for my sister, who's lost hers."