His words passed unheeded. The man he addressed spun round and faced him, with a rusty laugh. "Hark at that!" he cried. "Just hark at it! Why, in all the years I've been in this God-forsaken place—long as I've been here—I've never yet heard my own name properly spoken. You're the first, doctor. You shall have the medal."
"But, man alive, you surely don't let that worry you? Why, I've the same thing to put up with every day of my life. I smile at it." And Mahony believed what he said, forgetting, in the antagonism such spleen roused in him, the annoyance the false stressing of his own name could sometimes cause him.
"So did I, once," said Tangye, and wagged his head. "But the day came when it seemed the last straw; a bit o' mean spite on the part o' this hell of a country itself."
"You dislike the colony, it appears, intensely?"
"You like it?" The counter question came tip for tap.
"I can be fair to it, I hope, and appreciate its good sides." As always, the mere hint of an injustice made Mahony passionately just.
"Came 'ere of your own free will, did you? Weren't crowded out at home? Or bamboozled by a pack o' lying tales?" Tangye's voice was husky with eagerness.
"That I won't say either. But it is entirely my own choice that I remain here."
"Well, I say to you, think twice of it! If you have the chance of gettin' away, take it. It's no place this, doctor, for the likes of you and me. Haven't you never turned and asked yourself what the devil you were doin' here? And that reminds me.... There was a line we used to have drummed into us at school—it's often come back to me since. COELUM, NON ANIMUM, MUTANT, QUI TRANS MARE CURRUNT. In our green days we gabbled that off by rote; then, it seemed just one more o' the eel-sleek phrases the classics are full of. Now, I take off my hat to the man who wrote it. He knew what he was talkin' about—by the Lord Harry, he did!"
The Latin had come out tentatively, with an odd, unused intonation. Mahony's retort: "How on earth do you know what suits me and what doesn't?" died on his lips. He was surprised into silence. There had been nothing in the other's speech to show that he was a man of any education—rather the reverse.