ing trick: the boat has gone to
Holland, and the filthy spy is in the strong lock-up. My vigilance, my
astuteness, my resource unfathomable, my flair, my soul of an artist,
my patience inexhaustible, my address so firm and yet so delicate, my
mastery of the minds of those others less gifted, my--"

"Oh, stow it!" roared Dawson.

"Unfailing insight, _mon esprit francais_, my genius for the service
of police, my unshakable courage and elan, have had their just and
inevitable reward. The boat with the message so false has gone to
Holland for the German Kaiser to gloat over, and the filthy spy is in
the safe lock-up. I took him with my own hands--I, le Comte de
Froissart, I bemired my hands by contact with his foul carcase. The
boat it flew down the river; _ma foi_, like a flash of the lightning,
going they said thirty knots, _presque cinquante kilometres par
heure_. The glorious _Marine Anglaise_ will see that it reaches les
Pays Bas, and then when it is of return your sailors so splendid, with
sang-froid so perfect, will gobble it up. Just gobble it up. As I will
gobble up this cold beef upon your table. _Peste_, I am of a hunger
excruciating. I have not eaten for five, six, ten hours."

Froissart sat down at Dawson's table, where still lay the cold remains
of his supper--he had had the decency to reflect that his colleague
Froissart might be hungry upon arrival--and fell to eating copiously
and loudly. The French are least admirable when they are seen
devouring food.

Froissart ate while Dawson writhed. Though his colleague's success
would plant laurels upon his own brow--little would he ever say at the
Yard of that journey to Burnham and the preposterous funeral--he was
jealous, bitterly jealous. I am by special appointment the Boswell of
Dawson, yet I do not spare the feelings of my subject. Rather do I go
over them with a rake--for the ultimate good of Dawson's variegated
soul. He was bitterly jealous, but from natural curiosity yearned to
know the details of those feats of which Froissart prated so
triumphantly. And all the while, unconscious, heedless of his wrathful
exasperated chieftain, Froissart devoured food in immense quantities.
It was a disgusting exhibition.

Satisfied at last, Froissart broke away from the table, lit a
cigarette, and sat himself down beside Dawson before the fire. It was
well past midnight, but to these men regular habits were unknown, and
the hours of work and of sleep always indete