He sniffed uncertainly at the remark for a second or two and then broke into a laugh and asked me to play bridge after dinner.  On the two preceding evenings he and I had attempted to cheer, in this manner, the desolation of a couple of the elderly maiden ladies.  But I may say, parenthetically, that as he played bridge as if he were leading a cavalry charge according to a text-book on tactics, and as I play card games in a soft, mental twilight, and as the two ladies were very keen bridge players indeed, I had great doubts as to the success of our attempts.

“I’m sorry,” said I, “but I’m going down into the town to-night.”

“Theatre?  If so, I’ll go with you.”

The gallant gentleman was always at a loose end.  Unless he could persuade another human being to do something with him—­no matter what—­he would joyfully have played cat’s cradle with me by the hour—­he sat in awful boredom meditating on his liver.

“I’m not going to the theatre,” I said, “and I wish I could ask you to accompany me on my adventure.”

The Colonel raised his eyebrows.  I laughed.

“I’m not going to twang guitars under balconies.”

The Colonel reddened and swore he had never thought of such a thing.  He was a perjured villain; but I did not tell him so.

“In what my adventure will consist I can’t say,” I remarked.

“If you’re going to fool about Algiers at night you’d better carry a revolver.”

I told him I did not possess such deadly weapons.  He offered to lend me one.  The two Misses Bostock from South Shields, who sat at the table within earshot and had been following our conversation, manifested signs of excited interest.

“I shall be quite protected,” said I, “by the dynamic qualities of your acquaintance, Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos, with whom I have promised to spend the evening.”

“You had better have the revolver,” said the Colonel.  And so bent was he on the point, that after dinner he came to me in the lounge and laid a loaded six-shooter beside my coffee-cup.  The younger Miss Bostock grew pale.  It looked an ugly, cumbrous, devastating weapon.

“But, my dear Colonel,” I protested, “it’s against the law to carry fire-arms.”

“Law—­what law?”

“Why the law of France,” said I.

This staggered him.  The fact of there being decent laws in foreign parts has staggered many an honest Briton.  He counselled a damnation of the law, and finally, in order to humour him, I allowed him to thrust the uncomfortable thing into my hip-pocket.

“Colonel,” said I, when I took leave of him an hour later, “I have armed myself out of pure altruism.  I shan’t be able to sit down in peace and comfort for the rest of the evening.  Should I accidentally do so, my blood will be on your head.”

CHAPTER XII