I asked him if there were any English soldiers left here.  He said there was still a bicycle corps of scouts at the foot of the hill, at Couilly.  I thought that funny, as Pere had said the town was absolutely deserted.  Still, I saw no reason to doubt his word, so when he asked me if I could give him his breakfast, I brought him back to the house, set the table in the arbor, and gave him his coffee and eggs.  When he had finished, he showed no inclination to go—­said he would rest a bit.  As Amelie was in the house, I left him and went back to make the call my encounter with him had interrupted.  When I returned an hour later, I found him fast asleep on the bench in the arbor, with the sun shining right on his head.  His wheel, with his kit and gun on it was leaning up against the house.  It was nearly noon by this time, and hot, and I was afraid he would get a sunstroke; so I waked him and told him that if it was a rest he needed,—­and he was free to take it,—­he could go into the room at the head of the stairs, where he would find a couch and lie down comfortably.  He had sleepily obeyed, and must have just about got to sleep again, when it occurred to me that it was hardly prudent to leave an English bicycle with a khaki-covered kit and a gun on it right on the terrace in plain sight of the road up which the Germans had ridden so short a time before.  So I went to the foot of the stairs, called him, and explained that I did not care to touch the wheel on account of the gun, so he had better come down and put it away, which he did.  I don’t know whether it was my saying “Germans” to him that explained it, but his sleepiness seemed suddenly to have disappeared, so he asked for the chance to wash and shave; and half an hour later he came down all slicked up and spruce, with a very visible intention of paying court to the lady of the house.  Irish, you see,—­white hairs no obstacle.  I could not help laughing.  “Hoity-toity,” I said to myself, “I am getting all kinds of impressions of the military.”

While I was, with amusement, putting up fences, the gardener next door came down the hill in great excitement to tell me that the Germans were on the road above, and were riding down across Pere’s farm into a piece of land called “la terre blanche,” where Pere had recently been digging out great rocks, making it an ideal place to hide.  He knew that there was an English scout in my house and thought I ought to know.  I suppose he expected the boy in khaki to grab his gun and capture them all.  I thanked him and sent him away.  I must say my Irishman did not seem a bit interested in the Germans.  His belt and pistol lay on the salon table, where he put them when he came downstairs.  He made himself comfortable in an easy chair, and continued to give me another dose of his blarney.  I suppose I was getting needlessly nervous.  It was really none of my business what he was doing here.  Still he was a bit too sans gene.