You're the first, doctor. You shall have the medal."
"But, man alive, you surely don't let that worry you? Why, I've the same
thing to put up with every day of my life. I smile at it." And Mahony
believed what he said, forgetting, in the antagonism such spleen roused
in him, the annoyance the false stressing of his own name could
sometimes cause him.
"So did I, once," said Tangye, and wagged his head. "But the day came
when it seemed the last straw; a bit o' mean spite on the part o' this
hell of a country itself."
"You dislike the colony, it appears, intensely?"
"You like it?" The counter question came tip for tap.
"I can be fair to it, I hope, and appreciate its good sides." As always,
the mere hint of an injustice made Mahony passionately just.
"Came 'ere of your own free will, did you? Weren't crowded out at home?
Or bamboozled by a pack o' lying tales?" Tangye's voice was husky with
eagerness.
"That I won't say either. But it is entirely my own choice that I remain
here."
"Well, I say to you, think twice of it! If you have the chance of
gettin' away, take it. It's no place this, doctor, for the likes of you
and me. Haven't you never turned and asked yourself what the devil you
were doin' here? And that reminds me. . . . There was a line we used to
have drummed into us at school--it's often come back to me since.
COELUM, NON ANIMUM, MUTANT, QUI TRANS MARE CURRUNT. In our green days we
gabbled that off by rote; then, it seemed just one more o' the eel-sleek
phrases the classics are full of.
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