CHAPTER XXXV
IN A TIGHT PLACE
“Well, if this doesn’t beat any adventure ever had outside the Arabian Nights, I’ll eat a Zeppelin alive,” Phil mused with all the pep of an ejaculation. “If somebody doesn’t clear up the mystery of this amorphous monster of a man pretty soon, I’ll bu’st.”
It surely was a confusing situation, with a puzzling personality to add to the bewilderment. Phil would gladly have dismissed the subject from his mind if such thing had been possible, but he soon found this out of the question, so he attempted to quiet his nerves by venturing a conversation with his captor. He decided to make this attempt by an appeal to the unmistakable vanity of “the count.”
“May I ask you how it happens that you speak the American language so well?” he inquired.
Topoff turned quickly toward the boy and fired back at him in his usual high-pitched tone of voice:
“May I ask you why you call it the American language instead of the English?”
“I suppose I may as well tell you the truth,” Phil answered, somewhat crestfallen. “I thought I’d be more likely to get an answer out of you if I steered clear of that word English. I understand you people hate the English worse than anything else in the world.”
“Right you are, boy, right you are,” was the vehement reply of the big boche. “I hate them worse than poison, as does every other true subject of the kaiser. That was good diplomacy on your part, but it didn’t work on me, did it? Did you see how quickly I called you for it?”
“Yes, I did, and I’m not going to try anything on you again. But may I repeat my question? You speak the best of English, and your accent is perfect. How did you do it?”
“That isn’t the only mystery about me that is puzzling you, is it?” returned Topoff sharply.
“No, it isn’t,” Phil admitted frankly. “You’re by far the most mysterious man I ever met. I could sit here and fire questions at you all day, seeking an explanation of this and that.”
“Your first question is very simple,” answered the boche officer, swelling with pride and almost crushing the boy against the side of the car. “I studied in both England and America, also in France. I speak French just as well as English.”
“I must admit that you studied well,” Phil observed genuinely enough, yet with the view of winning the fellow’s favor by an appeal to his vanity.
“I didn’t do much studying at all,” Topoff flashed back. “Learning always came easy to me.”
He “swelled” his prisoner still harder against the well padded upholstering, so that the latter was scarcely able to restrain an outcry of pain. After the puff of pride had relaxed, the boy said to himself:
“This is the most monumental exhibition of conceit I ever saw in my life. But I must keep him going, in spite of the habit he has of swelling up like a gas bag every time I tickle his vanity. Maybe I can get used to these tight quarters. I wonder how long this journey is going to last.”
By this time they had passed the rear line trenches and were speeding past a company of artillerymen who were busy emplacing and camouflaging their field pieces in a bushy hollow. The automobile was tearing along at high speed, and in a short time they had left behind the fighting belt of trenches and ordnance and were traversing a broad territory of supply stations and relief and reinforcement camps.
Phil now found himself almost forced to resort to methods that he did not like, and, yet, the situation was in a considerable degree amusing. In order to bring about a condition that might prove favorable to himself, he saw that he must continue to play on his captor’s vanity. But it was a problem how to do this successfully. This ungainly and vainglorious anomaly of military officialdom was certainly a queer offshoot of humanity, but not a fool in all respects, according to a conclusion reached by Phil in more simple language.
“I don’t believe he’d fall for flat flattery,” the boy mused; “but I believe I can get him going if I work it right. It makes me feel kind o’ small to engage in such business, but that’s one of the penalties of war, and we all have to be victims of some sort. There’s one thing I’d like to find out above everything else, and that is how he manages to violate every principle of military authority and get away with it. If I could get an answer to that question, perhaps I could find out what he’s going to do with me and perhaps prevail on him to go slow on any rough stuff he may have in mind. It’s just possible he’s bent on revenge for the indignity I heaped on him at Belleau Wood. Well, here goes for a try anyway at some—some—suggestive flattery; yes, that’s a good name for it—suggestive flattery—to make him swell out so big, horizontally, that I’ll be pushed—right—through—yes, right through—happy thought!—the side of this limousine and escape. Oh!”
Phil did not, of course, utter this “exclamation” aloud, but he gave a sudden start that aroused the curiosity of “the count” quite as thoroughly as if he had expressed aloud the eagerness in his mind with the interjection that he succeeded in holding behind his lips.
“It’s the very idea I’ve been waiting for ever since I fell into this fellow’s hands,” Phil told himself, returning the curious look of his captor with another of naive innocence. “If this doesn’t work, I may as well jump into the first river we come to.”