"Show me your authority, please!"

King dived into an inner pocket and produced a card that had about
ten words written on its face, above a general's signature. Hyde
read it and passed it back.

"So you're one of those, are you!" he said in a tone of voice that
would start a fight in some parts of the world and in some services.
But King nodded cheerfully, and that annoyed the major more than ever;
he snorted, closed his mouth with a snap and turned to rearrange
the sheet and pillow on his berth.

Then the train pulled out, amid a din of voices from the left--behind
that nearly drowned the panting of overloaded engine. There was a
roar of joy from the two coaches full of soldiers in the rear--a
shriek from a woman who had missed the train--a babel of farewells
tossed back and forth between the platform and the third-class
carriages--and Peshawur fell away behind.

King settled down on his side of the compartment, after a struggle
with the thermantidote that refused to work. There was heat enough
below the roof to have roasted meat, so that the physical atmosphere
became as turgid as the mental after a little while.

Hyde all but stripped himself and drew on striped pajamas. King
was content to lie in shirt-sleeves on the other berth, with knees
raised, so that Hyde could not overlook the general's papers. At
his ease he studied them one by one, memorizing a string of names,
with details as to their owners' antecedents and probable present