"But man alive!" I cried. "What in the name of tornadoes do you
want?"
"I want to fight," said he. "The earth has grown too grey and
peaceful. Life is anaemic. We need colour--good red splashes of
it--good wholesome bloodshed."
Said I, "All you have to do is to go into a Berlin cafe and pull
the noses of all the lieutenants you see there. In that way
you'll get as much gore as your heart could desire."
"By Jove!" said he, springing to his feet. "What a cause for a
man to devote his life to--the extermination of Prussian
lieutenants!"
I leaned back in my arm-chair--it was after dinner--and smiled at
his vehemence. The ordinary man does not leap about like that
during digestion.
"You would have been happy as an Uscoque," said I. (I have just
finished the prim narrative.)
"What's that?" he asked. I told him.
"The interesting thing about the Uscoques," I added, "is that
they were a Co-operative Pirate Society of the sixteenth century,
in which priests and monks and greengrocers and women and
children--the general public, in fact, of Senga--took shares and
were paid dividends.
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