He was thoughtful for a moment, glancing interestedly round the room.

"It takes one back."

"What does?"

"This café, my friend."

"To your beginnings, you mean?"

"Yes. It is very like the café at Troyon's, at this hour especially, when
there are so few English about."

"Troyon's?"

"A restaurant in Paris. Famous in its day. Several years ago--before the
war--it burned down one night, cremating many memories. While it stood I
hated it, now I miss it; Paris without it is no more the Paris that I
knew."

"Why did you hate it, sir?"

"Because I suffered there."

He indicated a weedy young Alsatian across the room, a depressed and pimply
creature in a waiter's jacket and apron, who was shambling from table to
table and collecting used glasses and saucers.

"You see that omnibus yonder? What he is to-day, that was I in