The Happy Foreigner Part 18

"Oh, the Americans eat well!"

"I don't agree with you. They put money into their food, and they eat a lot of it, but they can't cook.

"Isn't it astonis.h.i.+ng what they eat! It's astonis.h.i.+ng what all the armies eat compared with our soldiers."

"Now this cake-bread! I should soon sicken of it. But _they_ will eat sweets and such things all day long."

"Well, I told you they are children!"

"The Americans here seem different. They behave better than those in France."

"These are very _chics types_. Pers.h.i.+ng is here. This is the Headquarters Staff."

"Yes, one can see they are different."

"It appears they get on very well with the Germans."

"Hsh--not so loud."

After dinner they strolled out into the town. The Bearskin was very anxious to get a "genuine iron cross."

He was offered iron crosses worked on matchboxes, on cigarette lighters, on ladies' chains.

"But are they genuine?"

He did not know quite what he meant.

"I don't suppose them to be taken from a dead man's neck, but are they genuine?"

In the streets the Germans sold iron crosses from job lots on barrows for ten francs each.

"But I will get one cheaper!" said the Bearskin, and clambered up the steps into shop after shop. He found an iron cross on a chain for seven francs. No one knew what the mark was worth, and the three men, with the German salesman, bent over the counter adding and subtracting on paper.

"How can a goblin countryside breed people who sell iron crosses at ten francs each?" wondered f.a.n.n.y.

There was a notice on the other side of the street, "Y.M.C.A., two doors down the street on your left," and the thin man stood in the door of the shop beside f.a.n.n.y and pointed to it.

"Couldn't you go there and get me cigars? They will be very cheap. Have you money with you?"

"I'll try," said f.a.n.n.y, "I've money. We can settle afterwards," inwardly resolving to get as many cigarettes as she could to take back for the men in the garage. She crossed the street, but looked back to find the thin man creeping after her. She waited for him, irritated.

"Go back. If the American salesman sees you he'll know it's for the French, and he won't sell."

"Tiens?"

"He knew that quite well," she thought impatiently to herself, "or he wouldn't have asked me to buy for him."

The thin man turned back to the cover of the shop like an eager little dog which has jumped too quickly for biscuit and been snubbed.

She went down the street and into the Y.M.C.A.

Instantly she was among three or four hundred men, who stood with their backs to her, in queues up the long wooden hall. Far ahead on the improvised counter was a _guichet_ marked "Cigars." She placed herself at the tail of that queue.

"Move up, lady," said the man in front of her, moving her forward. "Say here's a lady. Move her up."

Men from the other queues looked round, and one or two whistled slyly beneath their breath, but her own queue adopted her protectingly, and moved her up to their head, against the counter.

It was out of the question to get cigars now. She had become a guest, and to get cigars would imply that she was not buying for herself, but to supply an unknown man without. And the marks on her uniform showed that the unknown was French.

"One carton of Camels, please," she said, used to the phraseology.

"Take two if you like," said the salesman. "We've just got a dump in."

She took two long cardboard packets of cigarettes, and put down ten francs.

"Only marks taken here," said the salesman. "You got to make the change as you come in."

"Oh, well--I'll--"

"Put it down. Put it here. We don't get a lady in every day."

He gave her the change in marks, which seemed countless.

"I'm sure you've given me too much!"

"Oh no. Marks is goin' just for love in this country. Makes you feel rich!"

As she emerged from the hall with her two long cartons under her arm she found the thin man, the Bearskin and Blackberry-Eyes standing like children on the doorstep.

It was too much--to give her away like that.

Other Americans, coming out, looked at them as a gentleman coming out of his own house might look at a party of penguins on his doorstep.

f.a.n.n.y swept past her friends without a glance and walked on up the street with her head in the air. They turned and came after her guiltily. When they caught her up in the next street, she said to the thin man, "I asked you not to come near while I was buying--"

"Have you got cigars, mademoiselle?"

"No, I couldn't. Why did you come like that? Now I can go in no more.

You'd only to wait two minutes."

They looked crestfallen, while she held the cigarettes away from them as a nurse holds sweets from a naughty child.

"I could only get two packets. I can give you one. I'm sorry, but I promised to get cigarettes for some people in Metz."

The thin man brightened, and took the big carton of Camels with delight.

"They're good, those!" he said knowingly to the others. "How much were they, mademoiselle?"