"Twenty-three--if that has anything to do with it."

"You don't look it; I should hardly have guessed you to be just
that."

The man was growing impatient. "We need not discuss that," he said;
"I want to know about the army. Not two hours ago I saw a column of
troops moving northward on this road. You must have met them. Be
good enough to tell me the color of their clothing, which I was
unable to make out, and I'll trouble you no more."

"You are quite sure that you saw them?"

"Sure? My God, sir, I could have counted them!"

"Why, really," said the physician, with an amusing consciousness of
his own resemblance to the loquacious barber of the Arabian Nights,
"this is very interesting. I met no troops."

The man looked at him coldly, as if he had himself observed the
likeness to the barber. "It is plain," he said, "that you do not
care to assist me. Sir, you may go to the devil!"

He turned and strode away, very much at random, across the dewy
fields, his half-penitent tormentor quietly watching him from his
point of vantage in the saddle till he disappeared beyond an array of
trees.