Hobohemians

12“I told you. They tried to arrest us and Willy took out his passport. I am an Englishman. Don’t touch me. If you touch me I shall ring up the embassy, my embassy. So we all went to a café and Willy rang up, saying he was coming down at once. The three policemen began to get nervous. They asked me to do something with my friend but I said: ‘No, he is an insulted Englishman. His English blood is up. He will be formidable.’ So out we went, got in a taxi and drove to the embassy.”

13“Where is it?”

14“Oh, it doesn’t matter where.”

15“Rue St. Honoré,” said Willy sipping a presented coffee. “Did you notice how one of the policemen tried to get out?”

16“Yes, in the Place de la Concorde. I told the others: you had better keep him. I know him. The taxi is going fast too.”

17“I made them stay in till we got there and then” . . .

18“He kept ringing the bell, all shut up at midnight, the ambassador goes to bed at nine, the porter told me. But we insisted and we all marched in, six of us. Four policemen.”

19“What!”

20“Counting the porter I mean. They did a wigging, I can tell you. You should have seen the old ambassador in his decorations telling off those policemen. We are going to tea to-morrow.”

21“Is that right, Willy?”

22“Often go, except Sundays. Sunday they have their baths. You never visit on a Sunday. Heinke, hand some of my circulars round.”

23Heinke led Willy round the hundred pupil-potential tables of the Rotonde. Heinke presented circular and teacher, Willy bowed. At two in the morning they were reduced to their third night of sticking Willy’s circulars on the damp walls of vespasians [public urinals], distributing five apiece to lonely policemen and ten to corner ladies. “They give them to extensive moneyed clientele,” hoped Heinke. “Very good reklam [advertising]. We shall live like lords.”

24In this manner Willy disposed of seven hundred and eighty leaflets along the rive gauche. The rest he used elsewhere much later.

* * *

25The sun shining through the skylight window of the studio woke up Heinke. Holding his head between two hands he kicked Willy with a sharp knee. “Look at the time um Gottes Willen [for God’s sake],” he groaned. “Is it nine yet?”

26“Quarter past eight.”

27“Oh, for some beer. Who’ll get up and make some coffee? Well, let’s wait till she comes.”

28“Who?”

29“Spanish model. She’ll be here at nine. We’ll ask her to make breakfast.”

30The girl came at nine. Leaning over the balcony Heinke begged coffee. When she had laid it out, she disappeared to fetch croissants. Willy and Heinke ate cautiously. Their jaws ended somewhere inside their headaches. Deftly the model withdrew a tight-fitting dress and naked, holding her cup of coffee, sat on the dais chair. Heinke looked at her appreciatively and frowned. It was her way of making plain that the sitting had long since started, as far as her payment was concerned.