‘Funny little devil she is,’ he said contemplatively. ‘Women are odd, however you take ‘em; but she’s odder than odd. By God, sir, she’s odder than Dick’s hat-band! I suppose she wants me to believe that she’s forgotten how I bowled her out years ago. Soul! Heart ‘It was before she got married. She made me believe that I was the only man she ever came across who had either. There were twenty-three of us met in New York City, and we had a dinner on the strength of it. I was that mad, sir, at the time, I drummed up the whole contingent. I believe that evening left some of us a little sore, but it cured us, and little Gertie had three-and-twenty play-fellows the fewer next morning. And I’m damned if she didn’t open fire on me again in the first half-hour after all these years. It’s funny, ain’t it?’
‘I am afraid I must bid you good-afternoon, sir,’ said Paul. ‘And if you will permit a stranger to intrude in your affairs, I would suggest that you should make that cocktail your last.’
‘Wha-at?’ asked the Colonel, placidly smiling, and eating his cigar. ‘Should we have made it four-and-twenty if you had been in Noo Yawk City at the time of that banquet.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ Paul answered stiffly. ‘I don’t care to continue this conversation, and I will take the liberty to end it.’
‘I say,’ said the Colonel, ‘wait there. I never began a quarrel in my life, Mr. Armstrong, but I have ended—lemme see——’ He began to count upon his fingers with an inward look. ‘I have ended eight,’ he said.
‘Do you wish to quarrel now?’ Paul demanded.
‘Why, no, sir, no,’ said the Colonel; ‘I am a man of peace. But when you presoom, sir, to dictate what a man shall drink, and when you presoom to object to the theme upon which he chooses to converse—why, don’t you see?’
‘No,’ said Paul, ‘I do not see. If you choose to renew this conversation to-morrow, that is my hotel, and I shall be pleased to meet you there at any hour before noon.’
‘Now,’ the Colonel answered, taking him by the sleeve in alcoholic friendship, ‘you are becoming shirty, and your tone is warlike. And that, Mr. Armstrong, is unreasonable. Perhaps you know now that I am an old traveller. I’m a little bit of an explorer, sir, and I have never objected to being guided over a bit of country that I didn’t know, if I happened to meet a man that knew it Now, that’s enough said, Mr. Armstrong. If you find my conversation distasteful, just damn my eyes and go. But don’t you let me hear you. You can curse outside to your heart’s content, and, you see, that needn’t breed a quarrel.’
‘Very well,’ said Paul. The Solemn drunken man made him laugh in spite of his own anger and bewildered misery of mind. ‘Whatever cursing I may have to do shall be done outside.’