"Why, of course, there would be a girl.... He’d hardly come to a place like this alone, would he?" Some query in his look made her add hastily: "What was she like?" "Like.... The girl who’s carried off Davis? ..." He reflected a moment. "Pretty and plump and fluffy, with a pair of goo-goo eyes! She’s daughter or niece or something"—he boggled the explanation rather—"to the German chap who hired us the hangar at Drancy—if you can give that name to a ramshackle shed in a waste building-lot! And Davis—thundering good man, but once on a spree..." He whistled dismally. "If I could only get my claws on him! ..." Here the uniformed official returned to the charge: "Monsieur has found his friend—Monsieur has explained the situation. To enter the _Salon de Danse_ with Madame is not permissible—in the costume Monsieur displays. No doubt Madame will understand!" Patrine said, with a slight catch in her breath, as though some drops of chilly pleasant perfume had been suddenly sprayed on her: "He supposes ... he thinks ... that I’m ... your friend!" "I’ll explain." He reddened, turning to the official, saying in the French of the British schoolboy, laborious, devoid of colloquialisms: "_Monsieur, vous n’avez pas compris. Madame elle—elle n’êtes qu’une étrangère. Pour mon ami, je ne lui vois. Si vous permettre d’entrer, peut-être——_" "_Rototo! Voyez, man blousier, j’connais bien la sorte! Sufficit! Assez! Ça m’ fait suer, comprends?_" The gold-braided arm described a magnificent sweep, the large white kid-covered hand indicated remote distance—"_Sortez!_ ..." The Briton, thus invited to retire, looked at Patrine. "I can’t quite follow, but it’s plain he’s telling me to hook it. The rest is—pretty—strong?" She nodded, biting her lip. "Frightfully rude. Not that I know much Paris slang. But a friend of mine—" She broke off to listen, as from under the functionary’s waxed moustache rattled another sentence: "_A l’instant, ou j’appelle l’ sergent d’ville!_" "He’s talking about sending for the police now!" She added hastily: "Don’t let him do that! Offer him a tip!" The magic word must have been comprehended of the braided functionary. He ceased to fulminate. He waited, his avid eye upon the pair. The lean hatchety face of the aviator had flamed at Patrine’s suggestion. He said: "Don’t you think I’d have tipped him in the beginning—if I’d had the wherewithal? But expenses have been frightful!—the waste lot with the shed I’ve stalled the machine in costs as much as a suite of rooms at a decent middle-class hotel would. Had to fork rent in advance too. Proprietor’s a German as well as a jerry-builder, and when I’ve paid his goo-goo girl for our coffee and rolls to-morrow morning"—the speaker exhibited a disc of shiny metal bearing the classical capped and oak-wreathed head of the Republic, value exactly twopence-halfpenny—"I’ll have just one of these blessed tin things left."