Rejtő, Jenő: The three musketeers in Africa; Q 19045

2 set himself up as a restaurateur... Entertainment provided at this ramshackle joint consists of a radio, assorted daily newspapers, which arrive once in two months, and an Arab dancer named Leila, whose glamour is somewhat dimmed by the fact that she is well on the wrong side of fifty... The habitues are, by and large, legionnaires, who shoot craps, drinic, or write letters, or clean belts and weapons. A brawl towards dusk is a daily fixture, which once prompted a smart customer, who had abandoned the painter's vocation to join the Legion, to put up above the entrance a new sign which reads — GRAND HOTEL Five o'clock rye In the evenings Fighting by high-class guests Excellent chair-legs Efficient First Aid service Admission free Exit uncertain /Translation ends/ Restaurateur Brigeron is inordinately proud of his prowess as a chef, and is filled with a kind of tremulous joy by praises of his culinary masterpieces /whose superb savour bits of lampwick and other such trifles that on occasion are retrieved from them do not diminish/, "I learned cooking under Levin," is his invariable modest reply. No one knows who the great Levin is /or was/

; but as Brigeron is a fellow of great strength who in his righteous indignation over such display of ignorance may be supposed to be moved to commit assault and battery, none dares inquire. So over the years, it has come