I think he was too amazed to roar. King Ferdinand waddled over to him and plucked him by the arm, restraining him. King Constantine burst into a heavy laugh:
"Here, gentlemen! This will never do! It's all a misunderstanding. No offense was intended, Mr. O'Ryan——"
"Monsieur Xenos," said I, "it is difficult, I fancy, for a Prussian Admiral to avoid taking the offensive—except at sea."
And I walked into the house amid the most profound and paralyzed silence that ever assailed my ears.
Smith, in the living-room, having heard it all, was doubled up with laughter, but I was in no mood for mirth.
"Did you hear what Admiral Lauterlaus said to me!" I demanded, still hot. "Did you hear what that Prussian had the impudence to say to me under my own roof?"
"Yes, and I heard what you said to him, Michael!" And off he went into another fit of laughter.
"You don't know how funny it is," he said. "They've all been conspiring and perspiring all day long shut up in Tino's apartment with those two smelly Bolsheviks. And just when they'd come to some agreement about slicing up the world and ruling it among themselves, along you come and take all the joy out of life by sitting on a Prussian admiral!"
"I certainly shall put him out of the house if he's impudent to me again," said I, wrathfully. "And it will be tough on him if I do, because an avalanche has blocked the pass and we're all sewed up here together!"
"What!" exclaimed Smith with lively interest.