After he had eaten luncheon—­all except such portions of it as he spilled on himself—­the colonel grew confidential and chummy.  He tried to tell me an off-color story and forgot the point of it, if indeed it had any point.  He began humming the Marseillaise hymn, but broke off to say he expected to live to see the day when a column of French troops, singing that air, would march up Unter den Linden to stack their arms in the halls of the Kaiser’s palace.  I did not take issue with him.  Every man is entitled to his own wishes in those matters.  But later on, when I had seen something of the Kaiser’s standing army, I thought to myself that when the French troops did march up Unter den Linden they would find it tolerably rough sledding, and if there was any singing done a good many of them probably would not be able to join in the last verse.

Immediately following this, our conductor confided to me that he had once had the honor of serving Mr. Clemens, whom he referred to as Mick Twine.  He told me things about Mr. Clemens of which I had never heard.  I do not think Mr. Clemens ever heard of them either.  Then the brigadier—­it was now after three o’clock, and between three and three-thirty he was a brigadier—­drew my arm within his.

“I, too, am an author,” he stated.  “It is not generally known, but I have written much.  I wrote a book of which you may have heard—­ ‘The Wandering Jew.’” And he tapped himself on the bosom proudly.

I said I had somehow contracted a notion that a party named Sue —­Eugene Sue—­had something to do with writing the work of that name.

“Ah, but you are right there, my friend,” he said.  “Sue wrote ‘The Wandering Jew’ the first time—­as a novel, merely; but I wrote him much better—­as a satire on the anti-Semitic movement.”

I surrendered without offering to strike another blow and from that time on he had his own way with us.  The day, as I was pleased to note at the time, had begun mercifully to draw to a close; we were driving back to Paris, and he, sitting on the front seat, had just attained the highest post in the army under the regime of the last Empire, when he said: 

“Behold, m’sieur!  We are now approaching a wine shop on the left.  You were most gracious and kind in the matter of luncheon.  Kindly permit me to do the honors now.  It is a very good wine shop—­I know it well.  Shall we stop for a glass together, eh?”

It was the first time since we landed at Calais that a native-born person had offered to buy anything, and, being ever desirous to assist in the celebration of any truly notable occasion, I accepted and the car was stopped.  We were at the portal of the wine shop, when he plucked at my sleeve, offering another suggestion: 

“The chauffeur now—­he is a worthy fellow, that chauffeur.  Shall we not invite the chauffeur to join us?”