’Je suis ne a Paris, mais je suis americain, and if the prisoner has no objection I’d rather speak in English.’...  ’That will be delightful,’ he said; ’I shall do as you say.’...  He ran back to the bathroom.  In a moment he returned holding the patch up before him....  ‘Ah!’ he continued aloud, ’this merely says that the Heir Apparent will make a cruise of the world in a man-of-war; what does that signify?’...  ‘If you recognize the writing,’ I replied, ’you will, doubtless, remember the methods of its author when extending an invitation.’...  ’Yes, yes, I see; how clever of you!  Had you been a subject of mine I should have made you an ambassador!’...  ’That would imply infinite wisdom on my part, Sire! I bowed very humbly....  It made a hit with my prisoner.”

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“Alice will give up her wheel chair when the NUN gives the word ... she is worrying about my prisoner’s sister, Olga, and her two companions, who insist on offering their services to the poor in the Crimea ... and well she may!... ’Facing the East,’ they are likely to travel south!...  I must get rid of this old valet, Parafine Domino, who makes a nuisance of himself hovering around my prisoner like a hawk....  Gallipoli says he’ll get rid of Alice’s physician before the TENTS arrive,—­substituting a fake doctor from the Red Guard, who’ll tell me when the prisoners are fit to travel....  As ‘Captain’ of this Soviet Guard I am as cold-blooded as Gallipoli before the spies and hangers-on.... ’Captain?’... that title seems to stump the old Russian soldiers,—­they claim that there is no such animal....  The Sergeant has suggested that I put the prisoners under a SMALL GUARD when we take them to the Ural District Soviet Court of Workmen....  Nice trap to catch me....  If I agreed to this I’d be in the same category as Denikin or Dutov or Ekhart and be shot by the gang outside by mistake, so as to fulfill the prophecy of my lady of Buckingham....  My answer was to order the guard on the balcony to keep their guns pointed at the prisoners whenever they appear in the garden ... this will satisfy the eavesdropper in the red brick across the way and scare the wits out of old Parafine, besides giving him something to talk about when we get away....  To satisfy that suspicious Sergeant that there is no Japanese money secreted by the prisoners I have ordered my men to use their bayonets against the walls and ceilings ... even the frame of the bathroom is not to escape!...  Gallipoli is growling around that I’m doing my work too damned well to seem reasonable!...  The poor boob!  His idea of being reasonable seems to consist in spreading rumors that the prisoners have been disposed of in a dozen different ways....  When Maria and Tatiana mounted the truck in the yard this confiding swaggerer started the gossip that they were being loaded up to be taken out of town and shot....  Now I am told by some of the excited guard that that report is TRUE because they heard some one in the attic of the red brick yelling:  ’The baggage is at the station!’...