"For Bill read England and for goat read niggers," said one of Tims' men.
"You got it, sir," said Bindle approvingly. "As I told 'Earty last week, it ain't convincin' when yer starts squirtin' lead with a machine-gun a-tellin' the poor devils wot stops the bullets that there's a dove a-comin'. Them niggers get a sort of idea that maybe the dove's missed the train."
"Talkin' of goats——" began Angell Herald.
"We wasn't talkin' o' goats," remarked Bindle quietly, "we was talkin' o' Gawd."
Whereat Angell Herald at first looked nonplussed and finally laughed!
CHAPTER VII
A SURPRISE BEHIND THE VEIL
Windover, or to give him his full name, the Hon. Anthony Charles (afterwards Lord) Windover, apart from possessing a charming personality, has a delightfully epigrammatic turn of speech. It was he who said that a man begins life with ideals about his mother; but ends it with convictions about his wife. On that occasion Bindle had left his seat and, solemnly walking over to Windover, had shaken him warmly by the hand, returning to his chair again without a word.
It was Windover, too, who had once striven to justify celibacy for men by saying that a benedict lived in a fool's paradise; a bachelor in some other fool's paradise.
Windover's meeting with Bindle was most dramatic. Immediately on entering the room with Carruthers, Windover's eye caught sight of Bindle seated at his small table, the customary large tankard of ale before him, blowing clouds of smoke from his short pipe. Windover had stopped dead and, screwing his glass into the corner of his left eye, a habit of his, gazed fixedly at him who later became our chairman. We were all feeling a little embarrassed, all save Bindle, who returned the gaze with a grin of unconcern. It was he who broke the tension by remarking to Windover.