"Isn't that rather an uncertain method, too?" Sylvia asked. "Everything's uncertain," Mère Gontran proclaimed, triumphantly. "Life's uncertain. Death's uncertain. But never mind, we'll talk to Gontran about it to-night. I was talking to him last night, and I told him to be ready for another communication to-night. Now it's time to eat." In old days at the _Pension Gontran_ the meals had always been irregular, though a dozen clamorous and hungry boarders had by the force of their united wills evoked the semblance of a set repast. With the departure of her guests, Mère Gontran had copied her animals in eating whenever inclination and opportunity coincided. One method of satisfying herself was to sit down at the kitchen table and rattle an empty plate at the servant, who would either grunt and shake her head (in which case Mère Gontran would produce biscuits from the pocket of her apron) or would empty some of the contents of a saucepan into the empty plate. On one occasion when they visited the kitchen there was something to eat, a fact which was appreciated not only by the dogs and cats, but also by Mère Gontran's three sons, who lounged in and sat down in a corner, talking to one another in Russian. "They don't know what to do," said their mother. "It hasn't been decided yet whether they're French or Russian. They went to the Embassy to see about going to France, but they were told that they were Russian; and when they went to the military authorities here, they were told that they were French. The work they were doing has stopped, and they've nothing to do except smoke cigarettes and borrow money from me for their trams. I spoke to their father about it again last night, but his answer was very irrelevant, very irrelevant indeed." "What did he say?" "Well, he was talking with one of his fellow-spirits called Dick, at the time, and he kept on saying, _'Dick's picked a daisy,'_ till I got so annoyed that I threw the planchette board across the room. He was just the same about his sons when he was alive. If ever I asked him a question about their education or anything, he'd slip out of it by talking about his work at the Embassy. He was one of the most irrelevant men I ever knew. Well, I shall have to ask him again to-night, that's all, because I can't have them hanging about here doing nothing forever. It isn't as if I could understand them or they me. Bless my soul, it's not surprising that I come to rely more and more on so-called dumb animals. Yesterday they smoked one hundred and forty-six cigarettes between them. I shall have to go and see the ambassador myself about their nationality. He knows it's not my fault that Gontran muddled it up. In my opinion, they're Russian. Anyway, they can't say 'bo' to a goose in any other language, and it's not much good their fighting the Germans in what French _they_ know."