"Not in the least," said the young sub-lieutenant with equal crispness. "He might be if he didn't get half-stewed every day. The cough-drops are to conceal...."
"Oh, obviously!" said the Captain of the Base. "I knew that, thank you. But look here. Just give him a hint, will you, that there's too much to do just now in my office to have him coming in two or three times a week with a long yarn."
"What shall I do with him?" asked the sub-lieutenant deferentially.
The captain took a stance and swung the club.
"Don't care what you do with him," he said, taking a deep breath. "Lock him up, send him out in a transport, make him run round and round the White Tower, so long as he doesn't come to my office."
"Right-o, sir. He shall run round and round the White Tower for the duration of the war. He'll do less harm there than anywhere else."
CHAPTER IX
When Mr. Spokesly had left his friend to have one more, he experienced that comfortable feeling of having left someone behind which is one of the most tangible and gratifying results of getting on both in the world and in life. The incident crystallized for him, so to speak, the gaseous and indefinable emotions which had been passing through his mind since he had been fished out of the water. Avoiding the callous brutality of the expressed sentiment, he derived a silent and subtle satisfaction from the workings of a fate which had singled him out to survive a ship's company of men as deserving as he, but who were now none the less out of the running. Mr. McGinnis, who had obligingly died a startling but convenient death, had merely gone before. He would be waiting, no doubt, on the Dark Shore, his pink jaws going continually, ready to navigate them to their long home. Mr. Spokesly had not had a great deal to do with death heretofore, and he was much struck with the extreme ease with which one can grow accustomed to the horror of an elderly shipmaster being ordered about "like a dog," as the saying is. In a way, he could scarcely refrain from regarding his friend the lieutenant in the same light as his late shipmates. He was clear enough on this point now: that the way to success is not through a nursing-home for grievances. No one who had met Captain Rannie, for example, could regard a grievance as a worthy or valuable possession. And Mr. Spokesly, to whom had been denied access to the great founts of wisdom, had to progress by noting his fellowmen and their reactions upon his own feelings. He hastened away up Venizelos Street, full of vigour and hope, as though it lay upon him to achieve something of the work foregone by those so suddenly finished with life, who were now moving about, a bewildered and somewhat undisciplined little band of incongruous shades, lost and forgotten as the colossal armies of the slain went past. And he became aware, quite suddenly, in the midst of the bright noisy street, of life being an instinctive, momentary, impersonal affair after all. As he put it, like a lot of insects, and somebody steps on us, and we're squashed, and all the others go swarming on over us. And with that mysteriously heartening notion, Mr. Spokesly had a vividly imagined glimpse of those same armies marching through the shadows, millions of them, of all nations, silently moving towards an eternity of passionless intelligence. It would make no difference then, he thought. All we got to do, is make the best bargain we can for ourselves. Carry on! Like insects....
They looked like that. They swarmed in the narrow street, almost crawling over one another with brilliant and distinctive markings and in their hard dark eyes an expression of maniacal acquisitiveness. Their glances were almost like antennæ, waving to and fro in the bright, stench-laden air, communicating to the alert and secular intelligences within the warning of an approaching danger or victim. Like insects, too, they hived in dark holes, which they called shops, in the backs of which one could see their eyes glittering, lying in wait. And down the steep street came other insects, warrior ants astride of horses caparisoned in blue and silver, and green and gold, with shining metallic wing-cases and fierce head ornaments. They, too, moved on with the air of automata, without emotions or any consciousness of good or evil. They came on down, as they had come along that ancient Via Egnatia, beneath the great arch twenty centuries ago, just as hard-eyed janizaries had come in later times, settling in their swarms upon the city. Down the steep ancient street they came, settling heavily into their saddles with a clash of metal and wheeze of leather as their horses took the descent; and watching them with shining eyes from a doorway was Evanthia Solaris, an exquisite apparition in pale saffron with an enormous black hat. She was raised a step or two above the sidewalk, and Mr. Spokesly could see that slender gracile figure from the buff-coloured shoes and stockings of sheer yellow silk to the broad brim of black straw shading the pale dark face aglow with excitement. One would have imagined that she was watching the soldiers of her country riding out to defend her, or riding in to rescue her. She leaned forward a little, her lips parted in a smile, and an officer, noticing her in her doorway, sat straighter, raised his sword and smiled in reply. Her response was ravishing. She blew a kiss, and Mr. Spokesly marvelled at her enthusiasm. As well he might, for Evanthia was rehearsing a part. Patriotism to her was a fine brave gesture and she was practising it. It appealed to her dramatic instinct. Just as she would suddenly smother Mrs. Dainopoulos with impulsive caresses, so she cheered a lot of stolid soldiers who were nothing to her and in whose sentiments she had no share. Always Evanthia was certain of some sphere in the world where people act like this, and where they luxuriate in rare and beautiful emotions. She played at this as a western child plays hostess to her dolls. To her, for a brief blinding moment, it was real, and she loved the officer with the saluting sword. And Mr. Spokesly, rather scared, if the truth be told, and acutely conscious of his anomalous attire, slipped into a shop and dickered with a long-nosed Jew for a pair of Turkish slippers, while over his shoulder he saw the girl, now the soldiers were gone, step daintily into the road and go on down, with her delicate prinking walk, an exquisite moth among hard-eyed ferocious-looking insects.