"To hell with them!" suggested Jeremy, reaching for more tea.

"But Feisul's not easy to irritate," Grim went on. "He's one of those
rare men, who get born once in an epoch, who force you to believe that
virtue isn't extinct. He's almost like a child in some things--like a
good woman in others--and a man of iron courage all the time, who can
fire Arabs in the same way Saladin did five centuries ago."

"He looks like a saint," said Jeremy. "I've seen him."

"But he's no soft liver," continued Grim. "He was brought up in the
desert among Bedouins, and has their stoical endurance with a sort of
religious patience added. Gets that maybe from being a descendant of
the Prophet."

"Awful sort to have to fight, that kind are," said Jeremy. "They wear
you down!"

"So the French decided some time ago to persuade Feisul's intimates to
make a bad break which he couldn't repudiate."

"Why don't he cut loose with forty or fifty thousand men and boot the
French into the sea?" demanded Jeremy. "I'll make one to help him! I
knew a Frenchman once, who--"

"We'll come to that presently," said Grim. "I dare say you didn't hear
of Verdun."

"Objection sustained. Hand it to 'em. They've got guts," grinned
Jeremy. "Fire away, old top."