Vorwarts!"
They climbed easily, deliberately. At home in God's country Boyer
played golf, as became the leading specialist of his county.
Byrne, with a driving-arm like the rod of a locomotive, had been
obliged to forswear the more expensive game for tennis, with a
resulting muscular development that his slight stoop belied. He
was as hard as nails, without an ounce of fat, and he climbed the
long steep flights with an elasticity that left even Boyer a step
or so behind.
Stewart opened the door himself, long German pipe in hand, his
coat replaced by a worn smoking-jacket. The little apartment was
thick with smoke, and from a room on the right came the click of
chips and the sound of beer mugs on wood.
Marie, restored to good humor, came out to greet them, and both
men bowed ceremoniously over her hand, clicking their heels
together and bowing from the waist. Byrne sniffed.
"What do I smell, Marie?" he demanded. "Surely not sausages!"
Marie dimpled. It was an old joke, to be greeted as one greets an
old friend. It was always sausages.
"Sausages, of a truth--fat ones.'
"But surely not with mustard?"
"Ach, ja--englisch mustard."
Stewart and Boyer had gone on ahead. Marie laid a detaining hand
on Byrne's arm.
"I was very angry with you to-day."
"With me?"
Like the others who occasionally gathered in Stewart's
unconventional menage, Byrne had adopted Stewart's custom of
addressing Marie in English, while she replied in her own tongue.
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