"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.

I took the bull by the horns. I never neglect an opportunity of this