At that the fellow jumped off his high horse and ran
with me to his Chief--a smart young chap, a colonel in the army, and
a very intelligent man.
"I explained that I had been robbed, in a French railway-carriage, of
a diamond-necklace belonging to the Queen of England, which her
Majesty was sending as a present to the Czarina of Russia. I pointed
out to him that if he succeeded in capturing the thief he would be
made for life, and would receive the gratitude of three great powers.
"He wasn't the sort that thinks second thoughts are best. He saw
Russian and French decorations sprouting all over his chest, and he
hit a bell, and pressed buttons, and yelled out orders like the
captain of a penny-steamer in a fog. He sent her description to all
the city-gates, and ordered all cabmen and railway-porters to search
all trains leaving Marseilles. He ordered all passengers on outgoing
vessels to be examined, and telegraphed the proprietors of every
hotel and pension to send him a complete list of their guests within
the hour. While I was standing there he must have given at least a
hundred orders, and sent out enough commissaires, sergeants de ville,
gendarmes, bicycle-police, and plain-clothes Johnnies to have
captured the entire German army.
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