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I touched my hat lightly and the people in the room, without rising to their feet, replied more or less civilly to the greeting. “Can you tell me who is in charge here? I should like a room and something to drink sent up to it.” “Will you wait a minute, the boss has gone out.” “There’s the director, he’s upstairs,” suggested one of the men who had taken part in the conversation. “But you know he can’t be disturbed.” “Do you think they will give me a room?” “Expect so.” “43 must be free,” said the young man who was sure he would not be killed because he was twenty-two years old. And he moved a little way along the sofa to make room for me. “Suppose we open the window a bit, you can cut the smoke with a knife in here!” said the airman; and indeed they all had their pipe or their cigarette. “Yes, but in that case close the shutters first, you know it’s forbidden to show any light because of the Zeppelins.” “We’ve finished with the Zeppelins. There’s even been something in the papers about their having all been shot down.” “We’ve finished with this, we’ve finished with that, what d’you know about it? When you’ve done fifteen months at the front, as I have, and shot down your fifth Boche aeroplane, you’ll be able to talk. What d’you want to believe the papers for? They were over Compiègne yesterday, they killed a mother and two children.” “A mother and two children!” said the young man who hoped not to be killed, with blazing eyes and a look of profound compassion upon his energetic and open countenance, which I found very likeable. “There’s been no news of big Julot lately. His ‘godmother’ hasn’t had a letter from him for eight days, and it’s the first time he’s been so long without writing.” “Who is she, his ‘godmother’?” “The woman who looks after the toilets just beyond the Olympia.” “Do they sleep together?” “What an idea! She’s a married woman, she couldn’t be more respectable. She sends him money every week out of pure kindness of heart. She’s a real good sort.” “Do you know him then, big Julot?” “Do I know him!” retorted scornfully the young man of twenty-two. “He’s a close friend of mine and one of the best. There’s not many I think as highly of as I do of him: a real pal, always ready to do you a good turn. Yes, it would be a catastrophe all right if anything had happened to him.” Someone proposed a game of dice and, from the feverish haste with which the young man of twenty-two shook them and cried out the results, with his eyes starting out of his head, it was easy to see that he had the gambler’s temperament. I did not quite catch the next remark that someone made to him, but he exclaimed with a note of profound pity in his voice: “Julot a ponce! You mean he says he’s a ponce. But he’s no more a ponce than I am. I’ve seen him with my own eyes paying his woman, yes, paying her. That’s to say, I don’t say Jeanne l’Algérienne didn’t give him a little something now and then, but it was never more than five francs, and what’s that from a woman in a brothel earning more than fifty francs a day? A present of five francs! Some men are just too stupid to live. And now she’s at the front, well, her life may be hard, I grant you, but she can earn as much as she wants—and she sends him nothing. Bah, that chap a ponce? There’s plenty who could call themselves a ponce at that rate. Not only is he not a ponce, in my opinion he’s an imbecile.” The oldest of the group, whom the boss had no doubt for that reason put in charge of the others, with instructions to make them behave with a certain restraint, had been to the lavatory for a moment and heard only the end of this conversation. But he could not help looking in my direction and seemed visibly upset at the impression such talk must have made on me. Without addressing himself specially to the young man of twenty-two, though it was he who had been expounding this theory of venal love, he said, in a general manner: “You’re talking too much and too loud, the window is open, there are people asleep at this hour. You know quite well that