I felt the harsh, cold grip of usherdom upon my neck. Oh, those Champs-Elysées! The furswathed women with their entrancing wake of perfume behind them! But how could I fail to "like the prospect"? One hundred and seven francs and a few centimes.... I overwhelmed him with my gratitude. He rubbed his hands. "I am seeing M. Berthomieu this evening. Come back at ten tomorrow and I will give you place and time." * * * * * * Tuesday, October 21st, 1913.--Night was falling. In the Rue August-Comte I ran into groups of schoolboys coming out of the Lycée Montaigne. Oh, schoolboys, scholars and otherwise, stick to your mathematics, enter the Arts et Métiers, keep to your counters, lest one day you, too, find yourselves this comic puppet which skirts the Luxemburg and is lost in the Rue d'Assas. Always that "spirit of fancy" of which my kind tutor disapproved! Well, let's give the poor thing a farewell treat and take it to dine on the right bank. Vignerte paused at this point of his story. Then he resumed: "A bullet whistled past a short time back--there, just above our heads. Did it occur to you that if you had happened to pop your head out at that precise moment you'd have been laid out stiff! How far do you think luck goes in life?" "The other day," I answered, "there was trouble in the 11th Squad. No one wanted to go on water fatigue. Each of them said it wasn't his turn. As the squabble grew fiercer I intervened. I sent the first man I came across, the one who had been protesting loudest, as it happened. He went off grumbling that it wasn't fair. He left his cap behind him. When he came back he couldn't find it. It had been pulverized by a shell and his twelve comrades with it." "We seem to agree," said Vignerte. He resumed his story. What impulse was urging me on that evening, I, who confined myself to the tawdry delights of the Latin Quarter and never crossed the bridges at night? I remember I tried a one-man orgy at the "Grand V." Then I thought I'd like to take my coffee on the terrace of the Weber. Pretending I could refuse myself nothing, I passed before the lamps of the Olympia with the fixed intention of granting myself the joys of the promenade. Rather excited after my bottle of Barsac I walked very straight, staring brazenly at the girls. It was cold. I went back to Weber's and at once the lights and the throng restored my natural timidity. I sat down humbly in a corner with that lack of ease characteristic of a man who is afraid that people will notice he is not used to being there.