XVII
Tommy Barban was a ruler, Tommy was a hero, d**k happened upon him in the Marienplatz in Munich, in one of those cafés, where small gamblers diced on ‘tapestry’ mats. The air was full of politics, and the slap of cards.
Tommy was at a table laughing his martial laugh: ‘Um-buh, ha-ha! Um-buh, ha-ha!’ As a rule, he drank little; courage was his game and his companions were always a little afraid of him. Recently an eighth of the area of his skull had been removed by a Warsaw surgeon and was knitting under his hair, and the weakest person in the café could have killed him with a flip of a knotted napkin.
‘…this is Prince Chillicheff…’ A battered, powder-gray Russian of fifty, ‘…and Mr. McKibben, and Mr. Hannan…’ the latter was a lively ball of black eyes and hair, a clown; and he said
