He quietly returns to his table. The other speaks to the manager, and, if he be a good customer, the manager comes across to O’Hagan. O’Hagan rises slowly, fixing his eyes upon him. And, somehow, O’Hagan is never ejected. A devil of a fellow.
To the charge that he is a polished kind of bully he will reply calmly, arguing that he is merely of a sensitive and aristocratic temperament and suffers affront where one more callous would be conscious of none. He will submit to rudeness from no man, be he premier or potman; yet he is never vulgarly embroiled.
O’Hagan rarely wears a hat during the day. There is a simple explanation. At one time in his chequered career, the only presentable hat he possessed was a crush-hat. It was then that he cultivated the hatless fashion. This habit of going hatless directly led to his meeting with Pamela.
Captain O’Hagan was walking along a crowded, shop-lined thoroughfare, with that swinging stride which he will tell you runs in the family, and which enabled his ancestor Patrick to secure enrolment in the ranks of the Musketeers of Louis XIII. Before the door of a newsagent’s establishment—quite an unpretentious little shop—two men stood. One of them, elderly, waved a tweed cap—to a girl more than ordinarily pretty who was making her way up the steps to the roof of a moving motor bus. The girl carried a neat brown leather case, and, having gained a seat, turned and waved her handkerchief. The younger man smiled sourly, but did not join the elder in his waving.
O’Hagan, delighted with the girl’s animation and beauty, halted by the two, smiling at the retreating figure. Quite mechanically he raised the hard felt hat from the head of the younger and less enthusiastic man, and waved it with a vigour even more marked than that of the elder waver.
He was recalled to the scene from which the girl now had disappeared amid the motley traffic, by a violent punch in the ribs.
“Blighter!” said a coarse voice. “My ’at!”
Another than Captain O’Hagan had turned quickly, with arm raised to ward off another possible blow. But with O’Hagan the cult of the unusual is a creed to which he sacrifices daily. Some difficulty he experienced in suppressing a gasp, but he turned unhastily, calmly, and looked into the bright little eyes of the hat’s owner. These were set upon him wickedly, and a truculent, blue-shaded jaw was thrust forward in menace.
“You’ve properly asked for it,” continued the man, tensely, “and you’re goin’ to get it!”
“Jem!” protested the older man, fearfully. “Not here——”