The Defeat of the Demon Tailor

the commando was a wily strategist, but tricky tactics were among the tools of the perspicacious presser's trade

There is A syndicated comic strip for which I have a wry affection. It depicts, in one little frame, the embarrassingly familiar life of a character called Carmichael, imbecile in joy and ludicrous in anger. One cartoon sticks in my mind: poor Carmichael, driven at last to desperation, stands, sunken-eyed, brandishing a limp fly-swatter and saying, "Leave the screens open--I feel mean tonight!" I was in just such a state of impotent harassment when, on upper Broadway, I met for the first time since 1945 no less a man than Colonel Chidiock Reason, late of the Royal Marine Commandos. He had his own way of doing things--which was sideways--and was making a pincer-movement of approaching 42nd Street by way of Harlem, for it is beneath the dignity of this dour, inflexible man to ask directions of a policeman.

When Colonel Reason had transferred from his Highland regiment to the Commandos, where his peculiar kind of autocratic individualism found more room for expression, nobody had expressed more than the coolest kind of formal regret. It wasn't that he'd been what they used to call a "jungly-wallah," meaning Tarzan-like and uncouth. In fact he was, I think, the only man in Malaya who had Spam formally preceded into his tent by a Piper. But there is a good deal of the holy terror in him--he is cantankerous, perverse, cross-grained. For example: he regards penicillin as a superstition, but believes that iron worn next to the skin prevents rheumatic fever, because his mother told him so, and therefore always wears a pony's shoe on a lanyard under his shirt--swears by it. Once, in the ETO, having been captured by the enemy, he applied this little horseshoe to the chin, of a camp guard, who at once became unconscious, thus enabling Colonel Chidiock Reason to swap uniforms and, using the only German word he knew, march an entire enemy company into the British lines where it was duly locked up. The word was Vorwarts!

On another occasion he took over and occupied a strong enemy position by simply strolling up to the captain in command of the enemy force that held it -- although only Chidiock Reason and seven of his men were left of his company--and saying, in his sublimely sweet and reasonable Aberdeenshire accent, "To avoid further bloodshed, my man, surrender. Do you not see that you are only fifteen to our one?"

I mention only a couple of the fantastic adventures for which he has been heavily decorated--"kissed by more bewhiskered generals than any ballerina," as he puts it--and got his colonelcy at thirty-six. Yet, measure him, and you have the merest shrimp of a man, a hundred and ten pounds in his clothes, and of that half-opaque, evasive sand-color which belongs in pools at low tide--all but his eyes, which are brilliant blue. There is a sort of fine gravel on his upper lip and the backs of his hands. He is fanatical in his neatness: the only officer I ever knew who had his shoelaces ironed every morning. And a perfectionist in the matter of trouser creases.

Whenever you meet him he is either going to or coming from a tailor's shop, generally in a state of suppressed rage at their incompetence. I was not surprised, therefore, when, shaking hands with me for the first time in fifteen years, the first thing he said was, "Where can a man get his trousers pressed while he waits?"

"What's the matter with your trousers?" I asked; for his creases were sharp enough to satisfy the normally fastidious man.

"I have sent more than one of my ruffians to the cooler for appearing in public wearing a pair of concertinas like these," he said.

Now the Carmichael in me came out, and I said, "Why, Chidiock, two minutes' walk from here there's a tailor called Mr. Vara--an artist. He will press your trousers for you while you wait"-- adding--"and you will wait, and wait. Mr. Vara is known as the Demon Tailor of Columbus Avenue; he is a compulsive storyteller. If he wants to talk, you will be compelled to listen, no matter how much of a hurry you happen to be in."

The colonel said, "Oh, will I? Take me to this man Vara."

"He will hypnotize you."

"He'll hypnotize your granny! Come on." And now at last, I thought, I approach a solution to the ancient riddle: What would happen if an irresistible force met an immovable object? For nothing but a strong anesthetic could stop Mr. Vara were he determined to tell you a story, while Colonel Chidiock Reason is well known as a man who will die before he surrenders.

I said, "I tell you, Vara will hold you whether you like it or not."

Colonel Chidiock Reason replied, "He, and the gathered might of Europe and Asia could not--with the Ancient Mariner in reserve! On the contrary, it is I who will hold this man Vara in spite of himself."

"All right, will you bet?"

"I'll lay you two to one."

"In dollars?" I asked.

"I am not a betting man, for cash. Make it whiskey."

"Bottles?"

"I am not a bartender. I wager half a case to your three bottles."

"That you will hold Vara, but he won't hold you? It's a bet."

"A wager," said the colonel, primly.

But when we came into the little tailor's shop on Columbus Avenue, Mr. Vara was methodically tucking his wallet, watch and a gay silk handkerchief into the pockets of his holiday suit, which was hung out on a hanger--a jolly-looking outfit of chocolate flannel, with a Newmarket vest--and he was singing under his breath a little tuneless song, of which I caught the following words:

"Jennie's brother Irving took a big risk,

Bent to tie his shoelace, got a slipped disc . . ."

Hearing us, he looked up with a start, and said, frowning, "I thought I had locked the door."

"What for?" I asked.

"My wife's brother has met with an accident, and she has gone with the children to Bridgeport--and so," he said gaily, "I am shutting the shop for the day, and I am going to Jamaica, Long Island, to the horse races. I have an absolutely certain tip for the second race."

"But Mr. Vara," I said, "my friend must have his trousers pressed and --"

"--Tell your friend to go home and put them under the mattress and sit on them," said Mr. Vara.

At this, Colonel Chidiock Reason stepped forward and said, in a voice that made my blood run cold, "Are you referring by any chance to me?" Their eyes met. Mr. Vara blinked.

"Well . . . for an officer and a gentleman . . . it'll only take a few minutes." Then, recovering himself, Vara pointed to his little lidless box of a cubicle and said, "Go in there. Take off your pants. Sit down." I was surprised when Colonel Reason obeyed promptly and without protest, for I have seen him half kill strong men for addressing him in a less peremptory tone.

I said to Mr. Vara, with something unpleasantly like a sneer, "And you are the artist to whom time means nothing. You--"

"--No discussion, please!" said Mr. Vara. "If Vara says he is going to the horse races, Vara goes to the horse races. Enough!"

"Provided your wife isn't here to stop you," I said.

"My wife is an Act of God."

"But I told my friend you would tell us a story," I protested.

"What you tell your friends is your affair," said Mr. Vara, and he went to work faster than I had ever seen him work before; what time the colonel sat in the cubicle, one eye closed, squinting at Mr. Vara with the other, getting his range and taking stock of the position. The trousers were pressed in five minutes. Mr. Vara handed them over the side of the cubicle, and said, "Seventy-five cents. Hurry up, please."

The colonel obeyed; dressed briskly, and handed the tailor a five-dollar bill. Mr. Vara said, "My change is in the other pocket" -- took the colonel's place in the cubicle and feverishly gesticulated in my direction -- "Mr. Kersh, please hand me the brown suit on the hanger over there. I must dress, quick!"

But Colonel Chidiock Reason slid in front of me, quick as an eel and, taking Mr. Vara's trousers from the crossbar, rolled them up, tucked them under his arm and said with an astonishingly agreeable smile, "I, my fine-feathered friend, on the contrary, have a good hour to kill. And since you will not tell me a story, by heaven I will tell you one. And if you are in a hurry, Mr. Vara, you must wait until your hurry is over."

He put the trousers, in the pockets of which lay Mr. Vara's watch and wallet, upon a chair and sat on them. Disregarding the tailor's strangled cry of dumbfounded protest, he lit a cigarette and said, "So, you are going to the races, are you, my mannie? And in your passion for the Sport of Mugs you forget your manners, do you? And you are in a deuce of a hurry to squander your cash at the tracks, is that it? Well, let me tell you about the one and only occasion I laid good money on a horse, acting upon turf information of a kind that demonstrates your precious 'Time' to be an illusion. And I will thank you not to squirm when I talk, for if you do I'll break your leg . . ."

Mr. Vara sat frozen, in a kind of horrified fascination, while Colonel Chidiock Reason went on, very, very slowly:

"... Having put a stop to the highly irregular activities of Herr Hitler in Europe and Africa, and recovering from a hatful of machine-gun bullets in the briskets, I was sent to the Pacific by way of the United States of America in the early summer of 1947," said the colonel. "I was to be picked up in Los Angeles and conveyed thence to Indonesia where I was to conduct certain extremely tricky operations. The general idea was, that while convalescing on American T-bone steaks, I should make a lecture tour en route; and a very bad idea it was. For what was I to lecture about?

"Military discipline, perhaps, but only before servicemen. But civilians? I am no raconteur, such as you have the reputation for being, my fidgety little friend. And if it came to talking about myself and my own adventures--why, modesty forbade me, for the driest citation in my case would bring a blush to the cheeks of a Texan tall-talker. So I talked about nothing at all, but wore my kilt, and that did the trick. It met with deafening applause wherever I appeared. All the children wanted to play with the skean dhu, or dagger, in my stocking; all the men roared with delight whenever I took a cigarette out of my sporran; and one and all, directly or indirectly, took me aside to ask me, "What do you wear underneath?

"But traveling in trains I wore tropical trousers, for a kilt is hotter than the devil; and so I was in a constant state of miserable bedragglement, since the trains then were still of the wartime vintage, overcrowded and badly ventilated, and that summer was a scorcher. Sir, I have lain wounded on an anthill, and I have sat on a Burmese hornet's nest; but never have I experienced the misery that fell to my lot between Chicago and Denver. Luckily, the hot and thirsty old train paused for breath and water at Denver, and I had two hours in that pleasing city. Naturally, I looked first for a tailor's shop, but found near the station nothing but a kind of rat hole like this (saving your presence) where I left a few changes of clothes to be sponged and pressed. Then I sought a bar, and had a glass of whiskey-and-water.

"It was here that I had my first conversation with a Red Indian. He came in out of the white sunlight like a shadow on the loose; a burly old gentleman with a face like a battered copper kettle. He was dressed all in black: a black leather shirt with fringes at the pockets, black trousers tucked into a pair of those high-heeled cowboy boots decorated all over with beads, and a black hat of the sort they tell me costs a hundred dollars. Instead of a hatband, he had a band of silver a matter of two inches deep, and his hair was done in two long gray braids. The barman said, 'Here's Chief See-In-The-Dark. He's a Character.'

"The Chief, if such he was, came and stood by me. He said, 'Beer' -- and then pointed to my glass and said -- 'Shot,' and before I could protest, we were served. So I drank his health politely, and he drank mine with a nod.

" 'Beer?' I asked him. 'Beer,' said he. So I pointed to his glass and mine, and said, 'Beer -- Shot.' I was picking up the language.

"After a brief interval, 'Shot -- Beer,' he said. And later, 'Beer -- Shot,' said I. It was most soothing. Every time he ordered he paid with a silver dollar. I (continued on page 119)Demon Tailor(continued from page 76) liked his style -- there is something singularly Scottish about Red Indians -- and was prepared to make his better acquaintance, so after a while I said to him, 'Pardon my asking, sir, but do you know any other words in the English language?'

"'Some,' he replied, 'but more Spanish.'

"'Unfortunately, I know little Spanish, sir. You are not from these parts, I take it?'

"'No.' You see? True economy of speech. An Englishman would have said something like, 'What, me? From these here parts? Not me. I come from Uxbridge. You take the bus from Shepherd's Bush Station and . . .' etcetera, etcetera. But this man gave me a plain and succinct No.

"'They call you Chief See-In-The-Dark, I believe?'

"'Yes.'

"'May I ask why?'

"'Yes.'

"'Why?'

"'Futuro is dark. I see futuro.'

"'Beer -- Shot,' said I to the barman. Then, to the Chief, 'You see into the future, is that it?'

"'Yes.'

"'Well,' I said, 'I don't much regard that kind of thing. I come of a hardbitten Presbyterian family, don't you see, and my father was very much down on the Witch of Endor, and all that. But my mother, bless her heart, used to have a go at the tea leaves on the quiet, in an innocent kind of way.'

"'Shot -- Beer,' said he. Then he touched my medal ribbons and said, 'You -- valiente.'

"'Brave? Not especially,' I said. 'You know how some men are only sober when they're drunk. Well, I'm so saturated in crisis that I am only really calm when I'm in trouble.' He seemed to understand me. He nodded.

"'I tell you futuro?' he asked.

"I answered him, 'Chief, only cowards and fools want to know the future. But,' I said, handing him that time-tarnished crack vulgar mockers love to make with palmists and card-readers, 'you may tell me, if you like, what's going to win the Derby.'

"I was ashamed of myself for having said anything so crass; but it was said, and he nodded, looking somewhat scornful. 'Win? Derby? Yes, I tell,' he replied, and held his forehead. 'Kentucky Derby, hah?'

"I said, 'What, do they have a Derby in Kentucky?' He nodded. I went on, 'You'll excuse my ignorance. My question was, so to speak, merely academic. I have not the slightest interest in horse-racing, or in gambling in any form. It's ingrained. My parents were dead set against it, and it never appealed to me anyway. I have never even been to a race-meeting! I was speaking of the only Derby I know, the English Derby --'

"He held up a hand, and I was silent. His eyes became still as paint. Then he said, 'English Derby . . . Nueva Plaza de Mercado?'

"'Why,' I said, 'that means New Marketplace, and it is a fact that the English Derby is run at Newmarket.'

"'Pasado -- futuro -- nothing! All one. Like --' He drew an imaginary straight line in the air with such a steady hand that if you had put a spirit-level on it the bubble would have come dead center and stayed there. 'You ask, I tell. That win Derby.' And he touched the old SHAEF badge on my sleeve. Now, as you doubtless know, the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces had adopted for their device a shield-shaped affair, having embroidered on it a crusader's sword surmounted by a very gaudy little rainbow: it looked like the trademark for some kind of perfumed disinfectant.

"'This I don't get,' I said. 'Past and future are all one, and this guaranteed-not-to-hurt-the-most-delicate-skin advertisement is going to win the Derby ... Barman! Beer -- Shot.'

"Chief See-In-The-Dark said, 'I have few words.' Indeed, I imagine that even in his native tongue he was far from loquacious. 'I see it. Naranja.'

"'That means orange,' I said.

"'Yes. Orange. On him' -- pointing again to my badge -- 'in Iluvia. In fango.'

"'An orange in rain and mud,' said I. 'Well, I'm obliged to you for the tip, and the pleasure of your company. We'll have one for the road, and I'll be back to my train.'

"'Wait.' He touched my chest. 'You have pain there?'

"'A little.'

"'No sleep?'

"'Not as well as I might.'

"'Wait. I give you sleep. I make you see in sleep. I have few words. Wait.' He took out an old silver snuffbox, and produced from this a round brown pill. 'Tonight eat that. You sleep, and you see in sleep.'

"'Well, thanks,' I said, and put the pill in my cigarette case. Then I fished out an old silver Seaforth Highlanders' badge. 'Have that for luck,' I said.

"So we parted, the best of friends, for all I could not make head nor tail of his gibberish; and I got my clothes, and caught the train, and fell straight into the clutches of an elderly lady suffering from what I may describe as vicarious battle fatigue. She kept reading me letters from her son, who claimed, among other things, to have given General Patton a hot foot and got away with it. A barefaced lie: it was I who had done this thing!

"So, come midnight, I was too irritable and tired to sleep, and the wounds in my chest were throbbing, but then, remembering the Indian's pill, I took it out and swallowed it. The effects were curious. First I fell into a state that was neither sleeping nor waking -- not yet was it a half-sleep. The rocking, clattering old train seemed to rush away, leaving me floating; and as I floated, the heavy parts of my body and mind seemed to flake away from me. Inconsequentially, I saw my SHAEF badge, and it came to me that the rainbow and the sword meant Gay Crusader, which must be the name of a race horse. How stupid Chief See-In-The-Dark must think me! I thought.

"Then his image passed out of my mind, and the roar of the train became the confused yelling of a great crowd. I blinked, and felt cold water on my face; opened my eyes, saw a sector of bright green turf through a veil of rain, and knew that I was in England, at Newmarket, on the racecourse on Derby Day. I was in my uniform, but was wearing a trench coat, for the sky was leaking like a sieve, and I was in mud up to my ankles.

"A young captain of infantry with whom I seemed to be on friendly terms asked me, 'How's your luck, Chid?'

"'Bad,' I replied. 'I came here with two hundred pounds in my pocket, and I'm down to eighty.'

"'Well,' said he, 'have a bit on Dark Legend in the next race.'

"'That's the fourth, isn't it?' I asked.

"A gentleman in civilian clothes said, 'Yes. But my money's on Danellon. He likes a heavy course, and it's been coming down in bucketfuls this past three days.'

"'No, sir, no!' cried a third man, 'mark my words, put your shirt on Sir Desmond. I have.'

"'The more fool you,' said his companion, a bowlegged little major. 'Sir Desmond'll never stay that course in this going. I've put everything but my false teeth on Diadem.'

"Other voices said, 'Invincible!' and 'Kingston Black!' But I looked moodily at my card, fumbling the money in my pocket. I read that the judge was Mr. C. E. Robinson. Handicapper, Mr. R. Ord. Clerk of the scales, Mr. William C. Manning... . Then my eye fell on the name of a horse. Gay Crusader! I had a sudden overpowering feeling that this horse must win. I ran to the nearest bookie, and shouted, 'Eighty pounds to win on Gay Crusader!' 'A hundred and forty to eighty, win, Gay Crusader,' said the bookie, giving me a ticket.

"Everybody shouted, 'They're off!' Off they were. A sea-green jockey took the lead, and there was a cry, 'Come on Invincible! Invincible! Invincible!' A purple jockey with scarlet sleeves was coming up close behind, clinging like a marmoset to the neck of his mount. He squeezed ahead. 'Dark Legend!' Come on, come on Dark Legend!' came the cry, as the sea-green rider fell behind.

"As I saw it from where I stood, the last of the runners was ridden by a jockey in black and turquoise -- they seemed to stand still. 'Dark Legend! Dark Legend!' the crowd roared.

"But then a jockey with orange-colored sleeves seemed to lift his horse out of the mud with his knees and throw it forward with a terrific hitch of his shoulders. The roar of the crowd became a scream: 'Gay Crusader!' And then Gay Crusader was past the post with Danellon three lengths behind, and Dark Legend third.

"I took my ticket to the bookie and he paid me two hundred and twenty pounds. 'I don't begrudge it,' he said. The young infantryman said, 'Lend us a tenner, Chid -- I'm skinned.' I lent him a ten-pound note, and then I woke up... . What the devil are you laughing at, Kersh? ... I woke up, I say, with such an intense sense of the reality of this dream, or vision, that I could still feel the crispness of that money in my hand, and smell the bookie's cigar smoke.

"Then I slept deep for several hours, and awoke much refreshed; but the memory of that dream was in my mind with the vividness of a true physical experience. So I wrote it all down, in the form of a letter to my friend and man of business, Mr. Abercrombie, of London; and I added a postscript saying, 'Please put eighty pounds on Gay Crusader for me, to win the Derby.' And I sent this letter by air mail from Salt Lake City.

"I received his reply a week or two later, in San Francisco, where I was lecturing at the Presidio. It ran somewhat as follows:

"'My dear Chidiock -- I have received your very extraordinary communication to which, out of curiosity, I have devoted more time than it deserved. Either your Red Indian friend was singularly well-informed as to the past history of the Turf in England and was pulling your leg, or he was prophesying backwards. Gay Crusader won the Derby in the year 1917. Danellon and Dark Legend were, indeed, respectively second and third. Gay Crusader's colors were, in fact, white with orange sleeves. Danellon's were sea-green with purple cap; Dark Legend's were purple and scarlet. The judge, handicapper and clerk of the scales were, respectively, C. E. Robinson, R. Ord and William C. Manning. I find, on inquiry, that the race went almost exactly as you described it. Gay Crusader did pay fourteen to eight. Only you are precisely thirty years too late. Take another pill, and try sleeping with your head in the opposite direction.'

"And there you have the naked facts of this extraordinary affair. If you offer me some rational explanation, such as, that at the age of eight or nine I happened, in Northern Scotland, to read a minute account of a race at Newmarket in the south of England, or that Chief See-In-The-Dark kept a complete file of back numbers of Sporting Life in his wigwam, and memorized them -- well, go ahead.

"But I have detained you with this story, Mr. Vara, first of all to teach you not to hurry your betters, and secondly, that you may appreciate the fact that time is all on one plane. Past, present and future are all the same thing in the long run. Here are your trousers: let me have my change, if you please."

Mr. Vara was silent. He sat, bowed. I was sorry for him. Then he said, in a small, broken voice, "Mr. Kersh, will you be so kind as to lift the telephone and dial Susquehanna 1-3245? Ask Mike what won the second race at Jamaica."

I did so. "A horse named Phoenix," I told him.

"So? I was to have put my shirt on Varsity Express," he said. "So much for sure things. I am grateful to you, Captain, for detaining me."

"Colonel," said Chidiock Reason, turning to leave.

But Mr. Vara uttered a little cry, and said, "Stop! In all the flurry and unnecessary excitement, I have made a double crease in the right trouser leg at the back!"

"The devil you have!" said Colonel Chidiock Reason. "Where?"

"My rat hole of a shop is too small for a triple mirror, sir," said Mr. Vara. "Be so very kind as to take them off and I fix it in half a second."

He banged an iron onto the little stove. The colonel returned to the cubicle and handed Mr. Vara his trousers, growling, "Make haste, man. I have an engagement downtown in half an hour."

"More haste, less speed," said Mr. Vara, spreading the trousers on the board. "Past, present and future are all the same thing in the long run. And if you fluster me, sir, I am quite likely to burn a terrible hole in this fine garment. Have a cup of tea and relax; I am not going to the horse races after all. You have reminded me that I, too, was strictly brought up. Sit still, and I will tell you a story about how I was brought up ..."

And for three quarters of an hour he held the colonel's trousers in jeopardy under a very hot pressing-iron, while he told us the dullest story I have ever heard in my life. When at last he let us go, he said to the colonel, who was speechless with rage, "... And thank you for your fine story. I have great respect for the supernatural. I am not a scoffer. It would never occur to me to say to you, 'It could perhaps be that Red Indian was in a doughboy's uniform in Europe in 1917, and saw that same Derby.' Oh no, no! It would be almost impious to say, 'A Red Indian also likes his little joke, mister, and he was pulling your leg' -- so I will not say it."

Colonel Chidiock Reason was exasperated into arguing, "The detail, man! The judge, the handicapper, the clerk of the scales!"

"I am only a poor tailor in a rat hole of a shop, but if I were a lawyer in court, I should ask, 'How many shots of Scotch whisky was it you mentioned having drunk, General? I put it to you that the Red Indian told you all these things, but' " -- Vara shrugged in deprecation.

The colonel said, "It's lucky for you you're not thirty years younger!"

"Even old age has its compensations," said Mr. Vara, letting us out of the shop. "Come again, come again often!"

• • •

I let a decent interval pass before saying, "Well, Chidiock, I'll take my half case in Old MacTaggart's Highland Dew."

"You'll take your what?" the colonel asked, amazed.

"My winnings."

"Have you gone daft? I held Vara against his will, did I not?"

"Vara held you against yours, didn't he?"

"How d'you know? Since when were you a mind reader? Who are you to say that I wasn't on reconnoiter, sparring, feeling may enemy out? I have lulled him into a false sense of security."

"The fact remains -- "

" -- Oh, of course, if you want to call the wager off, go ahead -- if you insist on leaving the issue unsettled. But if I had time to finish this little game I could keep your Vara dancing half the night in his cubbyhole like a squirrel in a wire cage. For now I have my plan of campaign. My next move must nail him to the ground!"

"What move is that?" I asked.

"Obviously, my friend, I put on my tunic, shirt, tie, stockings, shoes -- and nothing else. Over all, I wear my long greatcoat, go into his cubicle ten minutes before closing time, throw off my coat, and scream bloody murder for the return of my kilt, swearing I was wearing it when I came in!"

"Better call it a draw," I said.

"Why so?" asked Chidiock Reason. "Why the devil so?"

"At the best, old fellow, yours would be a Pyrrhic victory."

"A victory is a victory, man!"

"Oh, talk sense, Chidiock! Would you sacrifice a platoon to kill a mouse?"

"If that mouse were gnawing at a vital line of communication. But where's your point, man, where's your point?"

"Look here," I said, "I've been in this country, off and on, a matter of fifteen years. The question of what a Scotsman wears under his kilt is one of the last jokes in the frayed old files of American professional humorists -- it still bears embroidery because it remains a question! Would you tip the information to Vara? Yes, you would detain him. But would it necessarily be against his will? Say he called in the neighbors?"

The colonel paused, biting his lip. "The information I tipped might be false," he said. "I could wear, say, a pair of drawers, green silk drawers."

"You would be improperly dressed," I said.

"On a commando stunt, anything goes," he reminded me.

"Against the civilian population of an ally?" I asked.

Quick as a snake, he was back at me: "I may wear the Chidiock plaid with civilian clothes."

"Say Vara rang the Evening Tabloid, and called a photographer?"

"Bah! Your imagination is overheated," said Chidiock Reason, drawing me into a bar. "Time to talk of the Vistula when you have crossed the Rhine, as Napoleon said -- or ought to have said. A homeopathic dose of that same Highland Dew of which you spoke is called for; a wee tincture. Come!"

"They charge a dollar a drink for Highland Dew in the bars," I protested.

"Why should that worry me, since you are going to pay?" said the colonel.