I didn’t say anything so he continued to meditate and think aloud, ending with a huge sigh and a fatalistic, “Well, we know what this Mademoiselle from Gay Paree is anyway! After hearin’ so much about her, it’s a surprise to find her livin’ up to expectations. She was a red hot cutie, alright alright.” We spent an uncomfortable afternoon. Ben’s appetite had been aroused and he wanted to chase after every woman we met. Two or three accosted us openly, and Ben would try half-heartedly to make a trade, but knowing that I wouldn’t go with him, he didn’t work up much zeal over any of them. None were as pretty as the first, anyway. Ben was disgusted with me. Hardly spoke to me that night. Said he didn’t know what to think of me: “Takin’ flowers to the General an’ refusin’ to go with the prettiest mademoiselle in Paris even when she offered to return your money if ya wasn’t satisfied! Holy cripes! You act just like a woman—damned if ya don’t.” So that’s how matters stood between us.... To-morrow I expected to see the Captain. Ben would have a little freedom to chase the elusive chickens about the boulevards, and perhaps he’d calm down a little if he had any success. CHAPTER 13 BELOW THE BELT —1— After stopping at the Captain’s rooms next afternoon and not finding him, I was beginning to feel sort of depressed, because I couldn’t be running in there every hour or so and his man didn’t know just what time he would be back; but that evening, just as Ben and I were trying to decide what to do for excitement, there comes a call for me and I go downstairs to find the Captain himself, in civilian clothes, waiting for me. I was surprised, of course: why the civilian clothes and why should he take the trouble to find me? For a moment I thought he must be wise to the game. But he wasn’t, for he explained his coming quickly enough. “If you are free this evening,” he told me, without wasting many words, “everything will be perfect. There’s a party at Madame Gedouin’s and it will be the ideal time to introduce you casually and unsuspiciously. All right?” I said “surely” and added that we were free all the time for the present, because the General was in the hospital. “Fine!” he exclaimed. “I don’t mean about the General: he’s a great fellow, only he works too hard, I hear. But if you can just give your time to this matter for a few days, I feel confident that we can get some worth-while results.”