"
"'Cos he is a lord?"
"Partly."
"'Cos he is an ass?" suggested White, as a plausible alternative.
"Partly; but chiefly because he is not the sort of man we want if there
is going to be a fight."
A momentary light gleamed in the major's eye, but it immediately gave
place to a placid interest in the Camembert.
"If there is going to be a fight," he said, "I'm on."
In which trivial remark the major explained his whole life and mental
attitude. And if the world only listened, instead of thinking what
effect it is creating and what it is going to say next, it would catch
men thus giving themselves away in their daily talk from morning till
night. For Major White had always been "on" when there was fighting. By
dint of exchanging and volunteering and asking, and generally bothering
people in a thick-skinned, dull way, he always managed to get to the
front, where his competitors--the handful of modern knights-errant who
mean to make a career in the army, and inevitably succeed--were not
afraid of him, and laughingly liked him. And the barrack-room
balladists had discovered that White rhymes with Fight. And lo! Another
man had made a name for himself in a world that is already too full of
names, so that in the paths of Fame the great must necessarily fall
against each other.
After luncheon, in the smaller smoking-room, where they were alone,
Cornish explained the situation at greater length to Major White, who
did not even pretend to understand it.
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