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

13 who signs herself as Yvonne Barré. Several months back, while he sought in vain to establish his true identity, Hick wrote a petition, which started a lengthy process of paper-pushing. The document travelled considerable distances, to Oran, back to Manson, then on to Paris, the United States and back again, growing into a bulky file on the way /and earning Hick repeated spells in detention/. The fattened petition took long breathers at its various stops, and V ended up in the war ministry archives in Paris, where it coughed quietly and died. Alphonse Nobody then had a bright idea: they should write to their crafty friend Boulanger, known to all as the Sultan, who ivas in Oran, asking him to look after the matter. /The Sultan, an uneducated person who becomes one of the principal characters, frequently communicates with the three musketeers in brief letters whose misspelled words and quaint turns of speech add one more to the many amusing touches in the narrative

./ Mademoiselle Barré says she got the idea to write her letter to "Mr Thorze" through an accidental meeting with Mr Boulanger. She enquires after her brother Francis, who, together with two friends, Thorze and a man named Pitman, seven years ago joined the Legion. Francis served a three-year sentence for attempted desertion, then for a year wrote letters from Manson. After that, he disappeared with-