“This gentleman is right,” he said. “The Duke of York has a small clipped moustache.”
The interruption appeared to come on the three debaters like a bombshell. It had on them an effect much the same as an uninvited opinion from a young and newly joined member would have on a group of bishops and generals in the smoking-room of the Athenæum Club. For an instant there was a shocked silence; then the man in uniform spoke.
“Wot do you want, stickin’ your ugly fat ’ead in?” he demanded coldly.
Shakespeare, who knew too much ever to be surprised at man’s ingratitude, would probably have accepted this latest evidence of it with stoicism. It absolutely stunned Sam. A little peevishness from the two gentlemen of leisure he had expected, but that his sympathy and support should be received in this fashion by the man in uniform was simply disintegrating. It seemed to be his fate to-night to lack appeal for men in uniform.
“Yus,” agreed the leader of the opposition, “’oo arsked you to shove in?”
“Comin’ stickin’ ’is ’ead in!” sniffed the man in uniform.
All three members of the supper party eyed him with manifest disfavour. The proprietor of the stall, a silent hairy man, said nothing: but he, too, cast a chilly glance of hauteur in Sam’s direction. There was a sense of strain.
“I only said——” Sam began.
“And ’oo arsked you to?” retorted the man in uniform.
The situation was becoming difficult. At this tense moment, however, there was a rattling and a grinding of brakes and a taxicab drew up at the kerb, and out of its interior shot Mr. Willoughby Braddock.