But when this pair slipped nearer and nearer until they could touch the big darky, and one of them barked the command right in his ear, he merely turned his head and without straightening his languid form inquired politely;
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, one of them asked for his papers.
“Your military papers--your pass--something to identify you by.”
“W'y, Boss,” he asked, “does you need papers to go round wid yere in Sant Nazare?” “This ain't St. Nazare,” they told him. “This is Paris.”
“Explains what?” They were getting cross with him.
“'Splains w'y I couldn't fine all dem niggers dey tole me wuz in Sant Nazare. Here I been in Paris all dis time--ever since early dis maw-nin'--an' I didn't know it. No wonner I couldn't locate dem big wharf-boats an' dem niggers.”
“Never mind that now--I just asked you where're your papers?”
“Papers? Me? Huh, Boss, I ain't got no more papers 'n a ha'nt. Effen you needs papers to git about on, you gen'elmen better tek me an' lock me up right now, 'ka'se I tells you, p'intedly, I ain't got nary paper to my name.”
“That's precisely what we aim to do. Come on, you.”
They took him to number ten Rue St. Anne where our provost-marshal in Paris has his headquarters and there the tale came out. I got it first hand from the captain of the Intelligence Department who examined him and I know I got it straight, because the captain was a monologist on the Big Time before he signed up for the war, and he has both the knack of narrative and the gift of dialects. Then later I myself saw the central figure in the comedy and interviewed him. In a way of speaking, I think his adventure was the most remarkable of any I have heard of on this side of the ocean--and I have heard my share. How a big lubberly American negro with absolutely nothing on his person to vouch for him or his purposes, could travel half way across a country where no one else may stir a mile without a pocket full of passes and _vises_ and credentials; and how, lacking any knowledge of the language, he managed to do what he did do--but I am anticipating.
It was at ten Rue St. Anne that my friend the ex-vaudevillian took him in hand with the intention of conferring the third degree. For quite a spell the interrogator couldn't make up his mind whether he dealt with the most guileless human being on French soil or with a shrewd black fugitive hiding his real self behind a mask of innocence. After he had made sure the prisoner was what he seemed to be, the intelligence officer kept on at him for the fun of the thing.