“So that’s how you pronounce it, is it? A cross between gargling and barking like a dog. I don’t think I could say it myself—my throat’s not made that way. I shall have to go on calling him Lollipop. So he sent you, did he?”
But he received a vehement negative. His visitor went so far as to spit upon the suggestion in a very realistic manner. Then he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper which he threw upon the table.
“Look,” he said. “Look and tremble, accursed Englishman.”
Anthony looked with some interest, not troubling to fulfil the latter part of the command. On the paper was traced the crude design of a human hand in red.
“It looks like a hand,” he remarked. “But, if you say so, I’m quite prepared to admit that it’s a cubist picture of Sunset at the North Pole.”
“It is the sign of the Comrades of the Red Hand. I am a Comrade of the Red Hand.”
“You don’t say so,” said Anthony, looking at him with much interest. “Are the others all like you? I don’t know what the Eugenic Society would have to say about it.”
The man snarled angrily.
“Dog,” he said. “Worse than dog. Paid slave of an effete monarchy. Give me the memoirs, and you shall go unscathed. Such is the clemency of the Brotherhood.”
“It’s very kind of them, I’m sure,” said Anthony, “but I’m afraid that both they and you are labouring under a misapprehension. My instructions are to deliver the manuscript—not to your amiable Society, but to a certain firm of publishers.”