can examine my No. 11, to whom I shall be able to give a less
arithmetical designation.

"No one can see us, nor hear us?" he asked in a half-stifled voice.

"No one."

"The guard?"

"Asleep."

My new friend takes my hands, he clasps them. I feel that he seeks a
support. He understands he can depend on me. And he murmurs:

"Do not betray me--do not betray me."

"Betray you, my boy? Did not the French newspapers sympathize with that
little Austrian tailor, with those two Spanish sweethearts, who sent
themselves by train in the way you are doing? Were not subscriptions
opened in their favor? And can you believe that I, a journalist--"

"You are a journalist?"

"Claudius Bombarnac, special correspondent of the _Twentieth Century."_

"A French journal--"

"Yes, I tell you."

"And you are going to Pekin?"