As he gave the order and as the landlord turned to execute it, exhibiting a sort of half-amused deference, the embarrassed glance of Hawkins, who was watching me uncomfortably, drew the newcomer’s attention to my presence.  He turned in a flash and I saw those parts of his face which were visible between the pieces of strapping to turn fierily red.  His brown eyes glared at me, and: 

“Martin!” he cried, throwing out his hand in the landlord’s direction, “Martin, damn you!  There is a stranger here!  Why the devil didn’t you tell me?”

“Sorry, Mr. Edward,” said the landlord, setting a glass of whisky before the excited man.  “No time.”

“It’s a lie!” cried the other, with a wild fury which so trivial a matter did not seem to warrant, “a deliberate damned lie!  You want to make me the laughing-stock of the place!”

Taking up the newly-filled glass, he dashed it violently to the sanded floor, so that it was shattered to bits.  Then, snatching off his hat, he held it as a shield between my inquiring gaze and his plastered face, and ran out of the room.  At the door: 

“Damn you all!” he shouted back at us.

I heard his quick footsteps receding.  Then, as he turned the corner the sound died away.  I looked across at Hawkins.  He was staring into his tankard with which he was describing slow circles as if to stir the contents.  Martin, having raised the bar-flap was phlegmatically engaged in sweeping up the fragments of glass into a dustpan.  It came to me all at once that these simple folk regarded the other’s outburst as a personal matter; their attitude was that of the grieved elders of a family, some member of which has misbehaved himself.  But assuredly I was not prepared to concur in this shielding silence; the pressman within me demanded an explanation.

“A strange young man,” I said tentatively.  “Very touchy, I should think?”

“Touchy?” repeated Hawkins, glancing up quickly.  “I seen him take Tom Pike by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his pants and pitch him in the horse-trough for askin’ of him who his tailor was, I have.”

“Indeed,” said I, “a local Carpentier, no doubt?”

“Ah,” said Martin, glancing at me as he turned to his seat behind the bar.  “Very ’andy with ’is ’ands.”

“He is evidently acutely sensitive of his present disfigurement.  Might I suggest that his most recent encounter was with a barbed-wire entanglement?”

But to my acute disappointment, Martin merely growled, shaking his head gloomily; and in this significant gesture he was closely imitated by Hawkins.  Therefore: 

“Is he badly disfigured?” I persisted.

“Only one is deep,” replied Hawkins, glancing almost apologetically at the landlord.  The unfortunate incident seemed to have drawn them more closely together.  “The one on his neck.  But he prides himself on his looks, don’t he, Martin?”

“He do,” agreed Martin.