Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/143

Rh bottles upon the ground with a tear, and a farewell to them—

"Vaya usted con Dios. Adios." He then turned with truculent ferocity and a terrific scowl upon the provider of the feast and growled—"Sangre de Cristo! thou peseta-less burro, give me a cigarillo or with the blessing and aid of el Eterno Padre I will cut thy throat with my thumb-nail. Hasten, perro!"

With a grunt of "Cosas d'España," the recruit removed his képi, took a cigarette therefrom and placed it in the steel-trap mouth of his amigo, to be rewarded with an incredibly sweet and sunny smile and a "Bueno! Gracias, Senor José. …"

Letting his eye roam from this queer band of ex-muleteers, brigands and smugglers to another party who were wading in the wassail, it needed not the loud "Donnerwetters!" and rambling reminiscent monologue of a fat brush-haired youth (on the unspeakable villainies of der Herr Wacht-meister whose wicked schadenfreude had sent good men to this schweinerei of a Legion, and who was only fit for the military-train or to be decapitated with his own pallasch) to label them Germans enjoying a kommers. Their stolid, heavy bearing, their business-like and somewhat brutish way of drinking in great gulps and draughts—as though a distended stomach rather than a tickled palate was the serious business of the evening, if not the end and object of life—together with their upturned moustaches, piggish little eyes, and tow-coloured bristles, proclaimed them sons of Kultur.

Rupert could not forbear a smile at the heavy, philosophical gravity with which the speaker, ceasing his monologue, heaved a deep, deep sigh and delivered