Page:Tales of the long bow.pdf/194

 for being a good citizen, a good tribesman, for wearing a nose-ring where nose-rings are worn."

"I say Kuklux, you know." remonstrated Wilding White in his hazy way. "Americans wouldn't be flattered"

"Do you suppose you haven't got a nose-ring?" cried Crane so sharply that the clergyman started from his trance and made a mechanical gesture as if to feel for that feature. "Do you suppose a man like you doesn't carry his nationality as plain as the nose on his face? Do you think a man as hopelessly English as you are wouldn't be laughed at in America? You can't be a good Englishman without being a good joke. The better Englishman you are the more of a joke you are; but still it's better to be better. Nose-rings are funny to people who don't wear 'em. Nations are funny to people who don't belong to 'em. But it's better to wear a nose-ring than to be a cosmopolitan crank who cuts off his nose to spite his face."

This being by far the longest speech the Colonel had ever delivered since the day he returned from his tropical travels long ago, his old friend looked at him with a certain curiosity; even his old friends hardly understood how much he had been roused in defence of a guest