some of their prisons
must be better than others and, if they will confine us in some
place near the frontier, instead of marching us half through
France, it will make it all the easier for us to get away. It is
not the getting out of prison that is the difficulty, but the
travelling through the country. I am getting on well with my
French, but there is no hope of being able to speak well enough to
pass as a native. As for you, you will have to keep your mouth shut
altogether, which will be mightily difficult."

"You will manage it somehow, Terence. I have no fear of you getting
me through the country. It is getting out of the country that
seems, to me, the difficulty."

"There is one thing, Dicky. We need be in no hurry about it. There
is little chance of fighting beginning for another six or seven
months and, directly we come to the end of our march, wherever it
may be, we must begin to pick up as much French as we can, from our
guards. In three or four months I ought, at least, to be able to
answer questions; not perhaps in good French, but in French as good
as, say, a Savoyard workman or musician might be able to muster."

"Oh, Lor'!" Dick Ryan said, with a deep sigh, "you don't mean to
say that I must begin to work on another language, just after I
have been slaving, for the last six months, at Portuguese?"

"Not unless you like, Dicky. I can either start alone, or with
someone else who has some knowledge of French; but I am not going
to run the risk of being recaptured by taking anyone with me who
cares so little for liberty that he grudges three or four hours'
work, a day, to get up the means of making his escape."

"Oh, of course I shall learn," Ryan said pettishly. "You always get
your own way, Terence. It was so at Athlone: you first of all began
by asking my opinion, and then carried out things exactly as you
proposed, yourself. Learning the language is a horrid nuisance, but
I see that it has to be done."

"I expect, Dicky, you will have to make up as a woman. You see, you
are not much taller than a tallish woman."

"Well, that would be rather a lark," Ryan said; "only don't you
think I should be almost too good-looking for a French woman?"

"You might be that, Dicky. It is certainly a drawback. If I could
get hold of a good-sized monkey's skin, I might sew you up in it."

"A bear skin would be better, I should say," Dick laughed; "but I
don't think anyone would think that it was a real bear. I sa