"

"Monsieur is too strong for me," replied Gaston, cryptically. He took
off his cap, wiped his face, and sat down at the wheel.

"If a man is not strong, what is he?" rejoined Magin. "But you will not
find this cigar too strong," he added amicably.

Gaston did not. What he found strong was the originality of his
passenger--and the way that cognac failed, in spite of its friendly
warmth, to cheer him. For he kept thinking of that absurd Bakhtiari, and
of the telegraph operator, and of M'sieu Guy, and the others, as he sped
northward on the silent moonlit river.

"This is very well, eh, Gaston?" uttered the Brazilian at last. "We
march better without our objects of virtue." Gaston felt that he smiled
as he lay smoking on his rug in the bottom of the boat. "But tell me,"
he went on presently, "how is it, if I may ask, that you didn't happen
to go in the steamer too, with your Monsieur Guy? You do not look to me
either old or incapable."

There it was, the same question, which really seemed to need no answer
at first, but which somehow became harder to answer every time! Why was
it? And how could it spoil so good a cognac?

"How is it?" repeated Gaston. "It is, Monsieur, that France is a great
lady who does not derange herself for a simple vagabond like Gaston, or
about whose liaisons or quarrels it is not for Gaston to concern
himself. This great lady has naturally not asked my opinion about this
quarrel. But if she had, I would have told her that it is very stupid
for everybody in Europe to begin shooting at each other. Why? Simply
because it pleases _ces messieurs_ the Austrians to treat _ces
messieurs_ the Serbs _de haut en bas_! What have I to do with that?
Besides, this great lady is very far away, and by the time I arrive she
will have arranged her affair. In the meantime there are many others,
younger and more capable than I, whose express business it is to arrange
such affairs. Will one _piou-piou_ more or less change the result of one
battle? Of course not! And if I should lose my hand or my head, who
would buy me another? Not France! I have seen a little what France does
in such cases. My own father left his leg at Gravelotte, together with
his job and my mother's peace. I have seen what happened to her, and how
it is that I am a vagabond--about whom France has never troubled
herself." He shouted it over his shoulder, above the noise of the motor,
with an increasing loudness. "Also," he went on, "I have du