Waters heard him stonily and nodded with meaning.
"You bet I will," he replied. "And when I'm through with you, you'll know just how grateful I am." The need for words with a taste to them mastered him. He broke into his own tongue. "You'll get yours, you big slob!"
"Eh?" The sergeant cocked an ear alertly, "Beek slab? What is that in
Russian?"
"It's your middle name," retorted Waters cryptically and made to move on.
"Do svidania!" called the sergeant mockingly, raising his voice to a shout. "Till we meet again! Because I shall be watching you, Votters; I shall be."
"Here!" Waters wheeled on him, hands withdrawn from his pockets and cleared for action.
"You start bellerin' at me in the street that way an' I'll just about."
There was no cohort of hostile istvostchiks here, and anger ached in him like a cancer. He stepped up to the sergeant with a couple of long, cat-footed strides and the out-thrust jaw of war. But the sergeant, instead of bristling and giving battle, held up one large, leather-clad hand with the motion of hushing him.
"St!" he clicked warningly. "Not now! Be orderly, Votters. See your lady-consul!"
"What?" Waters halted, taken by surprise, and turned his head. The sergeant, rigid and formal upon the instant, was saluting. Upon the high sidewalk, a dozen paces away, a girl was passing; she acknowledged the sergeant's salute with a small bow. Her eyes seemed to fall on Waters and she stopped.