that I had punctuated my eating with
comments on other people's clumsy bulkiness; suddenly, as I say, this
occupant, turning completely round, forced his face against mine and,
cigarette in hand, asked me for a light. I could see nothing but face--a
waste of plump ruddy face set deep between vast shoulders, a face
garnished with grey beard and moustache, and sparkling moist eyes behind
highly magnifying spectacles. Very few teeth and no hair. But the
countenance as a whole radiated benignance and enthusiasm; and one
thing, at any rate, was clear, and that was that none of my resentment
as to the restlessness of the chair had been telepathed.

Would I do him the honour of giving him a light? he asked, the face so
close to mine that we were practically touching. I reached out for a
match. Oh, no, he said, not at all; he desired the privilege of taking
the light from my cigarette, because I was an Englishman and it was an
honour to meet me, and--and----"_Vive l'Angleterre!_" This was all very
strange and disturbing to me; but we live in stirring times, and nothing
ever will be the same again. So I gave him the light quite calmly and
with great presence of mind said, "_Vive la France!_" Then he grasped my
hand and thanked me for the presence of the English army in his country,
the credit for which I endeavoured fruitlessly to disclaim, and we all
stood up and bowed to each other severally and collectively, and resumed
our own lives again.

But the incident had been so unexpected that I, at any rate, could not
be quite normal just yet, for I could not understand why, out of four of
us, all English, and one a member of the other sex, so magnetic to
Frenchmen, I should have been selected either as the most typical or the
most likely to be cordial--I who only a week or so ago was told
reflectively by a student of men, gazing steadfastly upon me, that my
destiny must be to be more amused by other people than to amuse them.
Especially, too, as earlier in the evening there had been two of our
men--real men--in khaki in the room. Yet there it was: I, a dreary
civilian, had been carefully selected as the truest representative of
Angleterre and all its bravery and chivalry, even to the risk of
dislocation of the perilously short neck of the speaker.

It was therefore my turn to behave, and I whispered to the waiter to
fill three more glasses with his excellent _Fine de la maison_ (not the
least remarkable in Paris) and place them o