They think us an unsophisticated folk."
The Major waved the coin aside. He planted himself on his wooden
leg, with his back to the door, and faced the baronet.
"I just want to tell you," he said quietly, "that the whole of what I
read was a lie."
"Naturally, my good fellow. One allows for that in those memoirs."
"The man, except in parable, was never bitten by a gander in his
life," persisted the Major. "Nor did he enlist and fall--if he
fell--through any magnanimous motive. He just left Troy on finding
himself betrayed by a neighbour--a dirty, little, mean-spirited,
pompous gander of a neighbour--and whatever example he may have
unwittingly--yes, and unwillingly--set, the lesson does not appear to
have been learnt--at least, until this moment. But," concluded the
Major, throwing wide the door, "we keep the ladies waiting, Sir
Felix."
Sir Felix, ordinarily the most irascible of men, gasped once and
passed out, cowed, beaten, utterly and hopelessly bewildered.
The Major stood by the door with chest inflated as it had not been
inflated for ten years and more.
Perhaps this inflation of the chest, reviving old recollections,
prompted him to do what next he did. Otherwise I confess I cannot
account for it. He stepped back from the door and looked around the
room, emitting a long breath. Outside the window the dusk was
already descending on the street. Within a glass-fronted cupboard in
the corner, hung his old uniform, sword, epaulettes and cocked hat;
above the mantelpiece a looking-glass.
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