"But, my dear Colonel," I protested, "it's against the law to carry
fire-arms."
"Law--what law?"
"Why the law of France," said I.
This staggered him. The fact of there being decent laws in foreign parts
has staggered many an honest Briton. He counselled a damnation of the
law, and finally, in order to humour him, I allowed him to thrust the
uncomfortable thing into my hip-pocket.
"Colonel," said I, when I took leave of him an hour later, "I have armed
myself out of pure altruism. I shan't be able to sit down in peace and
comfort for the rest of the evening. Should I accidentally do so, my
blood will be on your head."
CHAPTER XII
The tram that passes the hotel gates took me into the town and dropped
me at the Place du Gouvernement. With its strange fusion of East
and West, its great white-domed mosque flanked by the tall minaret
contrasting with its formal French colonnaded facades, its groupings of
majestic white-robed forms and commonplace figures in caps and hard
felt hats; the mystery of its palm trees, and the crudity of its
flaring electric lights, it gave an impression of unreality, of a modern
contractor's idea of Fairyland, where anything grotesque might assume an
air of normality.
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