He had sleepily obeyed, and must have just about got to
sleep again, when it occurred to me that it was hardly prudent to leave
an English bicycle with a khaki-covered kit and a gun on it right on the
terrace in plain sight of the road up which the Germans had ridden so
short a time before. So I went to the foot of the stairs, called him,
and explained that I did not care to touch the wheel on account of the
gun, so he had better come down and put it away, which he did. I don't
know whether it was my saying "Germans" to him that explained it, but
his sleepiness seemed suddenly to have disappeared, so he asked for the
chance to wash and shave; and half an hour later he came down all
slicked up and spruce, with a very visible intention of paying court to
the lady of the house. Irish, you see,--white hairs no obstacle. I
could not help laughing. "Hoity-toity," I said to myself, "I am getting
all kinds of impressions of the military."
While I was, with amusement, putting up fences, the gardener next door
came down the hill in great excitement to tell me that the Germans were
on the road above, and were riding down across Pere's farm into a piece
of land called "la terre blanche," where Pere had recently been digging
out great rocks, making it an ideal place to hide.
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