which recalled to him forgotten details, people encountered and faces merely caught sight of.
When she had made him speak thus for about a quarter of an hour, she suddenly interrupted him with: “Now we will begin. In the first place, we will imagine that you are narrating your impressions to a friend, which will allow you to write a lot of tomfoolery, to make remarks of all kinds, to be natural and funny if we can. Begin:
“ ‘My Dear Henry—You want to know what Algeria is like, and you shall. I will send you, having nothing else to do in a little cabin of dried mud which serves me as a habitation, a kind of journal of my life, day by day, and hour by hour. It will be a little lively at times, more is the pity, but you are not obliged to show it to your lady friends.’ ”
She paused to re-light her cigarette, which had gone out, and the faint creaking of the quill on the paper stopped, too.
“Let us continue,” said she.
“Algeria is a great French country on the frontiers of the great unknown countries called the Desert, the Sahara, central Africa, etc. , etc.
“Algiers is the door, the pretty white door of this strange continent.
“But it is first necessary to get to it, which is not a rosy job for everyone. I am, you know, an excellent horseman, since I break in the colonel’s horses; but a man may be a very good rider and a very bad sailor. That is my case.
“You remember Surgeon-Major Simbretras, whom we used to call Old Ipecacuanha, and how, when we thought ourselves ripe for a twenty-four hours’ stay in the infirmary, that blessed sojourning place, we used to go up before him.