‘Hullo, Burton!’ I exclaimed, touching his linen coat, ‘Do you find it so hot—déjà?’
Said he: ‘I don’t want to be mistaken for other people.’
‘There’s not much fear of that, even without your clothes,’ I replied.
Such an impromptu answer as his would, from any other, have implied vanity. Yet no man could have been less vain, or more free from affectation. It probably concealed regret at finding himself conspicuous.
After dinner at the Birds’ one evening we fell to talking of garrotters. About this time the police reports were full of cases of garrotting. The victim was seized from behind, one man gagged or burked him, while another picked his pocket.
‘What should you do, Burton?’ the Doctor asked, ‘if they tried to garrotte you?’
‘I’m quite ready for ’em,’ was the answer; and turning up his sleeve he partially pulled out a dagger, and shoved it back again.
We tried to make him tell us what became of the Arab boy who accompanied him to Mecca, and whose suspicions threatened Burton’s betrayal, and, of consequence, his life. I don’t think anyone was present except us two, both of whom he well knew to be quite shock-proof, but he held his tongue.
‘You would have been perfectly justified in saving your own life at any cost. You would hardly have broken the sixth commandment by doing so in this case,’ I suggested.
‘No,’ said he gravely, ‘and as I had broken all the ten before, it wouldn’t have so much mattered.’