I was on the point of declining when he pulled out a real Havana cigar, which certainly would have cost him a couple of dollars at the Café de Paris or “Ciro’s.”
“Here,” he said, handing it over, “you must want this, since you have probably not had a real cigar for a long time.”
I could not resist this invitation, and when I put my teeth on that cigar and took the first puff I condescended right away to permit the charming ladies to be presented to me. The first thing the ladies did was to offer me a piece of chocolate. I would not have touched chocolate for a thousand dollars, for I had had so much of it in Switzerland that it was almost obnoxious. However, I could not tell them that I had been fed up or they would not have had so much sympathy for me, for what I especially craved was sympathy and what I most especially desired was to be petted. So I told them that I was very sorry that I couldn’t accept their chocolate for the reason that the doctor had told me not to eat anything at all until I had gone to the specialist at Paris to see if anything was wrong with my stomach.
I soon realized what a bonehead remark I had made, for shortly afterwards Countess B—— pulled out some lovely club sandwiches. There were tears of regret in my eyes as my mouth watered like a spring—but that doctor gag was my story and I had to stick to it.
We talked quite a while and I smoked another one of this American’s good cigars, and then, by means of my olfactory sense, I realized that my clothes were making the air a little uncomfortable in there, so I excused myself and told them that I wished to go back to my compartment, as I felt awfully embarrassed looking so poorly among such lovely and refined people. Of course, they insisted that I stay in their compartment the remainder of the night, as there was plenty of room and I could stretch out and rest my weary bones while they should, like good angels, watch over me. This sounded real, but I knew from a personal standpoint that my welcome had expired as soon as they had seen the curiosity, namely, the prisoner of war, and that it would be more comfortable for all concerned that I hie me back among the peasants.
I had been to Paris quite a number of times. The old saying was that “all roads lead to Rome,” but the new one of the American Army was “all Army orders read to Paris,” it being an unwritten law that all army travel orders were via Paris. So in my visits I had naturally learned the customs and rules with respect to reporting to our Military Police of Paris.