It had become second nature for Paul to avoid his kind. As a sailor in port he had invariably slipped away from his mates. In the cafés of Europe he had preferred to sit at remote tables. Even in Cairo his real self had never mingled with his throng of acquaintances. Consequently he was in no sense disconcerted by a new esstrangement. However lonely he might feel, he was in a situation with which he knew how to cope.
There were days when he spoke to no one but Mrs. Barker, Mr. Silva, or Becky States, who still came to scrub and iron and chant unearthly melodies in her cracked, growling baritone. He developed reclusive habits that reminded him of Aunt Verona. He had already begun to collect texts—from such books as Norman Angell's The Great Illusion. "When," he sardonically mused, "shall I begin writing my futile history!"
Each new manifestation of the belligerent spirit intensified his disdain. His views were understood in no quarter and tolerated in few. Current patriotism struck him as being a glorification of the spirit in which Skinny Wiggins had been wont, with his bony fist, to prop a victim against a wall and reduce him to submission with the self-righteous query, "Did I? Did I? Say I did and I'll bust you in the eye!" Skinny certainly had; but had his heart been pure, his attitude was insulting and ill-bred—and patriotism was both. "My country, right
