But at the start I caught the
Corporal's eye, and there was in it such a convincing look of
"Whatever I may do I mean awfully well," that I just sat still and
did nothing.
The awkward pause was over before the soup was finished. Rough
good-nature and subtle good sense soon combined to eliminate arbitrary
distinctions. The Commandant won the first credit by starting a
conversation; it was really the only thing to do. Had the Commandant
and I been opposite each other we should probably have dined in polite
silence. But the Corporal was one of those red-faced burly people with
whom you have, if you are close to them, either to laugh or fight.
The Commandant was not inwardly afraid; he was innately polite. He
talked pleasantly to his _vis-a-vis_. The Corporal, a trifle abashed
at first, listened deferentially, but as the good food enlivened him
he ceased to be abashed and became cordial. From cordial he became
affable, from affable affectionate, and from affectionate he passed to
that degree of friendship in which you lean across the dinner-table,
tap a man on the shoulder and call him "old pal.
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