So saying, the attaché gathered up his robes and went below.
"Queer chap," said Sam. "He must be crazy."
"We've treated them rather badly, tho," said Cleary. "I'm glad Taffy hasn't had any executions, but our minister and all the rest have been insisting on executions of their big people, and no one talks of executing any of ours, altho they have suffered ten times as much as we have."
"You forget how the affair began," said Sam. "Suppose the Porsslanese had sent us missionaries to teach us their religion, and these missionaries had gradually got possession of land and also some local power of governing, and then we had ruthlessly murdered some of them and they had seized all our ports for the purpose of benefiting us, do you suppose that we would have risen like those miserable Fencers and massacred anybody? It is inconceivable. They have the strangest aversion to foreigners too."
"Some of them haven't," said Cleary. "Chung Tu is a friendly old soul, if he is cracked. He says he believes the Powers have been turned loose on his country to punish them for having invented gunpowder. He laughs at Cope's inventions. He says his people set the fashion, and then wisely stopped when they found that such inventions did more harm than good. I think they have a right to complain of us. Why, there's one of our soldiers in the steerage with seventeen of their pigtails with the scalps still fastened to them as trophies! Old Chung says our ribbons and decorations are the equivalent of the scalps dangling at a savage's belt. I didn't tell him we had the genuine article. But, come, you had better turn in. You'll have a hard day to-morrow. I've advertised your coming for all I was worth, and if they don't give you a send-off at St. Kisco, it isn't my fault. I'm glad you're well enough to stand it."
"I'm not as well as I look," said Sam. "I've lost all my nerve. I'm even worrying a little about all my loot in those cases in the hold. It sometimes seems that I oughtn't to have taken it."
"What!" cried Cleary. "Well, you are getting squeamish! After all the fellows you've killed or had killed, I shouldn't mind an ornament or two."
"Killing is a soldier's main business," said Sam. "Oh, well, I suppose looting is, too. I won't think anything more about it. Good-night."