From the window where the three men talked he
could be seen in profile.
"Wears well--doesn't he?" said one of them.
"Swears well, too, confound him!"
"Hah! Been trying to pump him, eh?"
"Yes. He's like a big bird catching flies--picks off your questions
one at a time, with one eye on you and the other one cocked for the
next question. Get nothing out of him but yes or no. Good fellow,
though, when you're not drawing him."
"You mean trying to draw him. He's the best that come. Wish they
were all like Kirby."
The man who had not spoken yet--he looked younger, was some years
older, and watched the faces of the other two while seeming to listen
to something in the distance--looked at a cheap watch nervously.
"Wish the Sikhs were all like Kirby!" he said. "If this business
comes to a head, we're going to wish we had a million Kirbys. What
did he say? Temper of his men excellent, I suppose?"
"Used that one word." "Um-m-m! No suspicions, eh?" "Said, 'No, no
suspicions!'" "Uh! I'll have a word with him." He waddled off,
shaking his drab silk suit into shape and twisting a leather
watch-guard around his finger.
"Believe it will come to anything?" asked one of the two men he had
left behind.
"Dunno. Hope not. Awful business if it does."
"Remember how we were promised a world-war two years ago, just
before the Balkans took fire?"
"Yes.
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