to acknowledge acquaintanceship with the nephew. From that all the misfortunes of the nephew had arisen. . . . Suddenly Tietjens said:
"Look here, pull yourself together. Are you mad? Stark, staring? . . . Or only just play-acting?"
The man suddenly sank down on to the bully-beef case that served for a chair. He stammered a question as to what—what—what Tietjens meant.
"If you let yourself go," Tietjens said, "you may let yourself go a tidy sight farther than you want to."
"You're not a mad doctor," the other said. "It's no good your trying to come it over me. I know all about you. I've got an uncle who's done the dirty on me—the dirtiest dirty ever was done on a man. If it hadn't been for him I shouldn't be here now."
"You talk as if the fellow had sold you into slavery," Tietjens said.
"He's your closest friend," Mackenzie seemed to advance as a motive for revenge on Tietjens. "He's a friend of the general's, too. Of your wife's as well. He's in with every one."
A few desultory, pleasurable "pop-op-ops" sounded from far overhead to the left.
"They imagine they've found the Hun again," Tietjens said. "That's all right; you concentrate on your uncle. Only don't exaggerate his importance to the world. I assure you you are mistaken if you call him a friend of mine. I have not got a friend in the world." He added: "Are you going to mind the noise? If it is going to get on your nerves you can walk in a dignified manner to a dugout, now, before it gets bad. . . ." He called out to Cowley to go and tell the Canadian sergeant-major to get his men back
