“Proceed, sir. I am ready to hear General Taylor’s message.”
“General Scott,” began Brinton once more, and this time his deep voice rose to oratorical volume, “on the platform before me I behold a sea of upturned faces. And not one honest face in the lot. I see in the place of honor—the place by rights due to General Taylor—a pompous and fat popinjay, lovingly known throughout the Union as ‘Old Fuss-and-Feathers.’ I see—”
The dais was in an uproar. A sheaf of sabers were whipped sibilantly from their scabbards.
Scott, his rotund face purple, rolled out of his seat and onto his plump legs.
“Sir!” he bellowed. “Consider yourself under arrest! General Taylor—”
“General Taylor,” snarled Brinton, “sent me here with some fool message or other. It was congratulatory, I believe, and therefore hypocritical. I’ve forgotten it. Because it was too good to waste on the man who has tried to reap where Taylor sowed—the jackal that seeks to ape our lion. And I left my dress uniform at the fonda, back there, too. Why should I put it on just to humor old Fuss-and-Feathers?”
By this time fifty officers were clambering down from the dais or running up from the edges of the cleared space to silence the man who had spoiled their patron’s day of homage.
Brinton heeded their approach not at all. Shifting in his saddle he faced the throng of gaping natives.
“Mexicanos!” he called in Spanish. “You have been conquered. But it was by General Taylor. Not by this overdressed old incompetent who has stolen Taylor’s laurels. He—”
The harangue ended abruptly.