He broke off, for at that moment a car drew up in front of the window, and the burly form of Inspector Grey stepped down in company with two constables and a lad of about fifteen, whom both Gregg and the doctor recognised as an inhabitant of the neighbouring village of Bapchurch.At the door he turned back again. Once more she had beaten him.
They agreed to this, and then Frank said it was not the place to waste their time in discussions; they could talk these matters over in the evening, and meanwhile they would look further at the temple and its surroundings."What's the difference, boy; you didn't aim to miss, did you? I didn't. It's not my only hurt; I think I broke something inside when I fell from the sad'--ah! that's your bugle, isn't it? It's my last fight--oh, the devil! my good boy, don't begin to cry again; war's war; give me some water.... Thank you! And now, if you don't want me to bleed to death get me out of this slop, and--yes,--easy!--that's it--easy--oh, God! oh, let me down, boy, let me down, you're killing me! Oh!--" he fainted away."Several times we have seen men with wooden collars three or four feet square, and with a hole in the centre, where the poor fellow's neck comes through. It is made of plank about two inches thick, and you can see that the load is a heavy one for a man to carry. He cannot bring his arms to his head; and if he has no friends to feed him, or no money to pay some one else to do so, he must starve. On the upper surface of the plank is painted the name of the criminal, together with the crime he has committed and the time he has been ordered to wear the collar. This instrument is called a 'cangue,' and is said to be in use all over China from one end of the country to the other."Now, you ladies--" cried the teased aide-de-camp, "I--I didn't save Gholson's life! I didn't try to save it! I only tried to split a Yankee's head and didn't even do that! Dick Smith, if you tell anybody else that I saved--Well, who did, then? Good Lordy! if I'd known that to save a man's life would make all this fuss I wouldn't 'a' done it! Why, Quinn and I had to sit and listen to Ned Ferry a solid half-hour last night, telling us the decent things he'd known Gholson to do, and the allowances we'd ought to make for a man with Gholson's sort of a conscience! And then, to cap--to clap--to clap the ki'--to cap--the climax--consound that word, I never did know what it meant--to clap the climax, Ned sends for Gholson and gets Quinn to speak to him civilly--aw, haw, haw!--Quinn showing all the time how he hated the job, like a cat when you make him jump over a stick! And then he led us on, with just a word here and there, until we all agreed as smooth as glass, that all Quinn had said was my fault, and all I had done was Gholson's fault, and all Gholson had said or done or left undone was our fault, and the rest was partly Ned's fault, but mostly accident."He knew he was being unwise in bandying stupid words with his wife. But she continued to make accusations, and his want of breeding, to use a general term, did not allow him to pass them over in the silence that he knew they deserved.
