"More fool him," returned Palmer, preparing to go back to his book.
"Half a sec.," cried Sinclair, with a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Raney and I are joining the Mud-Crushers on Monday. If you don't join too, and recruit Cottrell, you'll get kidney-punch from us both."
Palmer looked his persecutors up and down. He was no coward and would have left enduring marks on Sinclair, but of O'Rane's disabling, Japanese methods no one had yet made beginning or end.
"But what's the good of my mucking about in a filthy uniform?" he demanded. "I'm going to be a land agent."
"Decide. Don't argue," ordered O'Rane. "Think how useful a little rifle practice will be when you're invited to murder hapless driven birds."
"But it's all rot...."
O'Rane waved him away. "If you will arrange to be in bed at 9.45 to-night, Sinks and I will give ourselves the pleasure of waiting on you."
Palmer hesitated a moment longer.
"Oh, anything for a quiet life," he exclaimed.
"Now go and recruit Venables," said O'Rane. "Sinks and I are old men, broken with the cares and sorrows of this life. We should hate to be dragged into a vulgar brawl, but you may use our names as a guarantee of good faith. I saw a man killed with a kidney-punch out in Kobe once."