"We knocked him on the head at a quiet part of the road, stripped him of every stitch of clothing, tied a large stone to his feet, and pitched him over the cliff," he said calmly.
"And his clothes——," I began, shrinking back a little in my chair.
"Are these," said Tiel, indicating his respectable-looking suit of black.
Curiously enough this was the only time I heard the man tell a tale of this sort, and in this diabolical, deliberate, almost flippant way. It was in marked contrast to his usually brief, concise manner of speaking. Possibly it was my reception of his story that discouraged him from exhibiting this side of his nature again. I certainly made no effort to conceal my distaste now.
"Thank God, I am not in the secret service!" I said devoutly.
"I understand you are in the submarine service," said Tiel in a dry voice.
"I am—and I am proud of it!"
"Have you never fired a torpedo at an inoffensive merchant ship?"
"That is very different!" I replied hotly.
"It is certainly more wholesale," said he.