"Eh, zoum--zoum--zoum!
Boum--boum--boum!
Here's to the Artillery
Gaily riding by!
Fetch me a distillery,
Let me drink it dry--
Fill me full of sillery!
Here's to the artillery!
Zoum--zoum--zoum!
Boum--boum--boum!"
"Fifi!"
"M'sieu?"
"You're so clever! Where is that Yellow Devil now?"
"Pouf!" giggled Fifi. "On its way to Berlin, pardie!"
"That's easy to say. Tell me something else more expensive."
Nini said, surprised: "What we know is free to Prince Erlik's friend. Did you think we sell
to Russians?"
"I don't know anything about you or where you get your information,"
said Neeland. "I suppose you're in the Secret Service of the Russian
Government."
"Mon ami, Nilan," said Fifi, smiling, "we should feel lonely
outside the Secret Service. Few in Europe are outside--few in the
world, fewer in the half-world. As for us Tziganes, who belong to
neither, the business of everybody becomes our secret to sell for a
silver piece--but not to Russians in the moment of peril!... Nor to
their comrades.... What do you desire to know, comrade?"
"Anything," he said simply, "that might help me to regain what I have
lost."
"And what do you suppose!" exclaimed Fifi, opening her magnificent
black eyes very wide. "Did you imagine that nobody was paying any
attention to what happened in the rue Soleil d'Or this noon?"
Nini laughed.
"The word flew as fast as the robber's taxicab. How many thousand
secret friends to the Triple Entente do you suppose knew of it half an
hour after it happened? From the Trocadero to Montparnasse, from the
Point du Jour to Charenton, from the Bois to the Bièvre, the word
flew. Every taxicab, omnibus, sapin, every bateau-mouche, every
train that left any terminal was watched.
"Five embassies and legations were instantly under redoubled
surveillance; hundreds of cafés, bars, restaurants, hôtels; all the
theatres, gardens, cabarets, brasseries.
"Your pigs of Apaches are not neglected, va! But, to my idea, they
got out of Paris before we watchers knew of the affair at all--in an
automobile, perhaps--perhaps by rail. God knows," said the girl,
looking absently at the dancing which had begun again. "But if we ever
lay our eyes on Minna Minti, we wear toys in our garters which will
certainly persuade her to take a little stroll with us."
After a silence, Neeland said: "Is Minna Minti then so well known?"
"Not at the Opéra Comique," replied Fifi with a shrug, "but since
then."