I wonder, after all, whether there is any method in his madness--for mad he is, as mad as can be. Why does he come backwards and forwards between Algiers and Marseilles? What has Saupiquet to do with his quest? What revelation was he about to make on the payment of his fifteen sous? It is all so grotesque, so out of relation with ordinary life. I feel inclined to go up to the retired Colonels and elderly maiden ladies, who seem to form the majority of my fellow-guests, and pinch them and ask them whether they are real, or, like Papadopoulos and Saupiquet, the gentler creatures of a nightmare. Well, I have written to the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3rd Regiment of Chasseurs at Tlemcen, which is away down by the Morocco frontier. I have also written to Lola Brandt. I seem to miss her as much as any of the friends I have left behind me in England. I cannot help the absurd fancy that her rich vitality helps me along. I have not been feeling quite so robust as I did when I saw her daily. And twinges are coming more frequently. I don't think that rolling about in the Mediterranean on board the _Marechal Bugeaud_ is good for little pains inside. CHAPTER XI When I began this autobiographical sketch of the last few weeks of my existence, I had conceived, as I have already said, the notion of making it chiefly a guide to conduct for my young disciple, Dale Kynnersley. Not only was it to explain to him clearly the motives which led to my taking any particular line of action with regard to his affairs, and so enable me to escape whatever blame he might, through misunderstanding, be disposed to cast on me, but also to elevate his mind, stimulate his ambitions, and improve his morals. It was to be a Manual of Eumoiriety. It was to be sweetened with philosophic reflections and adorned with allusions to the lives of the great masters of their destiny who have passed away. It was to have been a pretty little work after the manner of Montaigne, with the exception that it ran of its own accord into narrative form. But I am afraid Lola Brandt has interposed herself between me and my design. She had brought me down from the serene philosophic plane where I could think and observe human happenings and analyse them and present them in their true aspect to my young friend. She has set me down in the thick of events--and not events such as the smiling philosopher is in the habit of dealing with, but lunatic, fantastic occurrences with which no system of philosophy invented by man is capable of grappling. I can just keep my head, that is all, and note down what happens more or less day by day, so that when the doings of dwarfs and captains, and horse-tamers and youthful Members of Parliament concern me no more, Dale Kynnersley can have a bald but veracious statement of fact. And as I have before mentioned, he loves facts, just as a bear loves honey.