“Beg pardon; being a foreigner, I fancied you'd probably be—er—” He evidently wants to say “a Bohemian,” but fears to wound my feelings.
“'A damned Bulgarian anarchist,'” I suggest.
He snorts, laughs, and apparently is already inclined to smile at his recent heat.
“I'm a bad-tempered old boy,” he says. “Pardon, mossoo.”
He is ashamed, I can see, that John Bull should have condescended to lose his temper with a mere foreigner. This point of view is not flattering; but the naïveté of the old boy amuses me.
“Take a seat, sir,” I now venture to suggest, “and allow me to offer you a little whiskey and a little soda water.”
He hesitates for a moment, for he has not intended that pacification should go to this length; but his kindness of heart prevails. He has erred and he feels he must do this penance for his lack of discretion. So he says, “Thank you,” and down he sits.
And that was the beginning of my acquaintance with my martial neighbor, General Sholto. In half an hour we were talking away like old friends; indeed, I soon began to suspect that the old gentleman felt as pleased as I did to have company on that wet afternoon.
“I understand that you adorn the British army,” I remark.
“I was a soldier, sir; I was a soldier. I would be now if I'd had the luck of some fellows. A superannuated fossil; that's what I am, mossoo; an old wreck, no use to any one.”