"Guess a man don't have no use for a hat in a climate like this—sun so soft, and only ninety-nine in the shade."
Whereupon an Englishman with a ripped and ragged mouth and a miscellaneous nose, half pug and half Roman, answered—
"Been hanging himself up on a nail by the breast of his coat, too, you bet."
Putting his hand to his hair and looking down at the torn cloth of his tunic, Gordon realised for the first time that he was bareheaded, having left his helmet at the Citadel, and that to the unclean consciousness of the people about him he was drunk.
At that moment he started up suddenly, and coming into collision with the American, who was swinging on the back legs of his chair, he sent him sprawling on the ground, where he yelled—
"Here, I say, you blazing——"
But the third man at the table, a dragoman in a fez, whispered—
"Hush! I know that gentleman. Leave him alone, sirs, please. Let him go."
With heart and soul aflame, Gordon walked away, intending to take the first cab that came along and then forgetting to do so. One wild thought now took possession of him and expelled all other thoughts. He must go back to the Citadel and accuse the General of his gross injustice. He must say what he meant to say when he stood by the door as he was going out.
The General should hear it—he should, and by —— he must!