"I am perfectly aware of that. And that was General Campion's intention in ordering me to accompany him round my cook-houses. . . . But I doubt. . . . I put it to you for your serious attention whether that is the best way to hush this matter up. . . . I think it would be more expedient that I should plead guilty to a charge of striking General O'Hara. And naturally to being drunk. An officer does not strike a general when he is sober. That would be a quite inconspicuous affair. Subordinate officers are broken every day for being drunk." Levin had said "Wait a minute," twice. He now exclaimed with a certain horror: "Your mania for sacrificing yourself makes you lose all . . . all sense of proportion. You forget that General Campion is a gentleman. Things cannot be done in a hole-and-corner manner in this command. . . ." Tietjens said: "They're done unbearably. . . . It would be nothing to me to be broke for being drunk, but raking up all this is hell." Levin said: "The general is anxious to know exactly what has happened. You will kindly accept an order to relate exactly what happened." Tietjens said: "That is what is perfectly damnable. . . ." He remained silent for nearly a minute, Levin slapping his leggings with his riding-crop in a nervously passionate rhythm. Tietjens stiffened himself and began: "General O'Hara came to my wife's room and burst in the door. I was there. I took him to be drunk. But from what he exclaimed I have since imagined that he was not so much drunk as misled. There was another man lying in the corridor where I had thrown him. General O'Hara exclaimed that this was Major Perowne. I had not realised that this was Major Perowne. I do not know Major Perowne very well and he was not in uniform. I had imagined him to be a French waiter coming to call me to the telephone. I had seen only his face round the door: he was looking round the door. My wife was in a state . . . bordering on nudity. I had put my hand under his chin and thrown him through the doorway. I am physically very strong and I exercised all my strength. I am aware of that. I was excited, but not more excited than the circumstances seemed to call for. . . ." Levin exclaimed: "But . . . At three in the morning! The telephone!"