IT must have been late in November when la commission arrived. That is to say B. I consider this one of the luckiest things in my life. A list was made of les hommes who were to pass la commission, another of les femmes. These lists were given to the planton with The Wooden Hand. Room, subject to instant callmoreover they were not called one by one, or as their respective turns came, but in groups of three or four; the idea being that la commission should suffer no smallest annoyance which might be occasioned by loss of time.
There were always, in other words, eight or ten men waiting in the upper corridor opposite a disagreeably crisp door, which door belonged to that mysterious room wherein la commission transacted its inestimable affairs. Not more than a couple of yards away ten or eight women waited their turns. Conversation between les hommes and les femmes had been forbidden in the fiercest terms by Monsieur le Directeur: nevertheless conversation spasmodically occurred, thanks to the indulgent nature of The Wooden Hand.
The Wooden Hand must have been cuckoohe looked it. If he wasn't I am totally at a loss to account for his indulgence. All that afternoon we waited. Also we waited all next morning. We spent our time talking quietly with a buxom, pink-cheeked Belgian girl who was in attendance as translator for one of les femmes. She struck me immediately as being not only intelligent but alive. She questioned us in excellent English as to our offences, and seemed much pleased to discover that we wereto all appearancesinnocent of wrong-doing.
From time to time our subdued conversation was interrupted by admonitions from the amiable Wooden Hand. Twice the door SLAMMED open, and Monsieur le Directeur bounced out frothing at the mouth and threatening everyone with infinite cabinot, on the ground that everyone's deportment or lack of it was menacing the aplomb of the commissioners. Each time The Black Holster appeared in the background and carried on his master's bullying until everyone was completely terrifiedafter which we were left to ourselves and The Wooden Hand once again.
I cannot honestly say that the discovery of this proximity of ourselves to our respective fates wholly pleased us; yet we were so weary of waiting that it certainly did not wholly terrify us. All in all, I think I have never been so utterly un-at-ease as while waiting for the axe to fall, metaphorically speaking, upon our squawking heads.
