The woman became
intolerable to him, and the Penny-farthing Shop, reeking with the odour
of stale tobacco and spilled liquor, poisoned him. He took up his hat
brusquely and stepped into the street.
Madam Marx, standing at the door, laughed at him as she called out,
"Good-bye, Gregorio; when will you come back?"
He did not answer, but the sound of her laughter followed him up the
street, and he kicked angrily at the stones in his path.
At last he passed by the Ras-el-Tin barracks. He looked curiously at the
English soldiers. Some were playing polo on the hard brown space to
the left, and from the windows of the building men leaned out, their
shirt-sleeves rolled up and their strong arms bared to the sun. They
smoked short clay pipes, and innumerable little blue spiral clouds
mounted skyward. Obviously the heat did not greatly inconvenience them,
for they laughed and sang and drank oceans of beer.
The sight of them annoyed Gregorio. He looked at the pewter mugs shining
in the sunlight. He eyed greedily the passage of one from hand to hand;
and when one man, after taking a long pull, laughed and held it upside
down to show him it was empty, he burst into an uncontrollable fit of
anger, and shook his fist impotently at the soldiers, who chaffed him
good-naturedly.
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