Joe Burt stood in his shirt-sleeves in the door of his lodgings with folded arms and cocked chin. His pipe was in his mouth and he was sucking at it fiercely with turned-in lips and inflated nostrils.
The engineer was clearly on the defensive; the Colonel saw it at once and knew why. On the main issue Joe had proved fatally, irretrievably wrong. But he had been "on the platform" now for twenty years. In other words he was a politician, and in the Colonel's view no politician ever admitted that he was wrong. To cover his retreat he would almost certainly resort to the correct tactical principle of a counter-offensive.
"That was a great speech of yours, Burt," the Colonel began.
"We must fight," he said. "There's no two ways about it. The Emperors have asked for it; and they shall have it. No more crowned heads! We've had enoof o yon truck!"
In his elemental mood accent had coarsened, phrase become colloquial. He took his pipe from his mouth.
"Sitha!--this'll be a fight to a finish atween the Old Order and the New--atween what you stand for and what A do."
"And what do I stand for?" asked the Colonel.
"Imperialism--Capitalism--call it what you will. It's the domination of the workers by brute force."
The engineer stuffed his pipe back into his mouth.
"Happen not of you. Of your class, yes." He felt he had been on dangerous ground and came off it. "_We_ shall fight because we must," he said. "What about you?"
He was making a direct offensive now, and turned full face to his adversary.
"Yes," retorted the other. "The officers of the Army?--shall you fight?"
"Last time you were asked to, you refused," he remarked. "Said you'd resign rather. One General said if there was war he'd fight against England. It was a piece in the _Daily Telegraph_. A've got it pasted in ma Ammunition Book. Coom in and see!"
"I think the officers will be there or thereabouts all right if the're wanted," he said.
"Well, you came out against the railway-men in 1911," he said. "A will say that for you. A wasn't sure you'd feel same gate when it coom to Emperors."
They strolled back together to Pevensey Road; and for the first time the Colonel actively disliked the man at his side. That wind of the spirit which had blown through the engineer yesterday purging him of his dross had passed on into the darkness. To-day he was both politically dishonest and sexually unclean.