"We're a pack of sad dogs, we men!" he said jovially, smiting me familiarly on the shoulder again. "We're all up to our little tricks—every one of us, eh, O'Ryan? No—no! Don't pull a smug face with me—a good looking young fellow like you! No, no! it won't do, O'Ryan. We men ought to be frank with one another. And that's me—bluff, rough, frank to a fault!—just a soldier, O'Ryan——"
"I thought you were a wine-merchant, Monsieur Xenos."
"Oh, certainly. But I've been a soldier. I'm more at home in barracks than I am anywhere else." He chuckled, dug me in the ribs with his thumb:
"Be a good sport, O'Ryan. You don't want both of them, do you? My God, man, you're no Turk, I hope. Why can't that very young one—I mean the yellow haired one—bring me my breakfast and——"
Probably my features were not under perfect control for the King stopped short and took an instinctive step backward.
"Where do you think you are, Monsieur Xenos?" I asked, striving to keep my voice steady. "Did you think you are in a cabaret, or a mastroquet or a zenana?"
"Oh, come," he began, losing countenance, "you shouldn't take a bluff old soldier too precisely——"
"You listen to me! Mind your damned business while you're under my roof or I'll knock your silly head off!"
I looked him over deliberately, insultingly, from the tasseled toe of his Algerian bed-room slippers to his purple pyjamas clasped with a magnificent ruby at the throat.
"Behave yourself decently," said I slowly, "or I'll take you out to the barnyard and rub your nose in it."