I came in here to gird up my loins with a little dinner before I tackled him.

But something seems to be the matter with Maroni's cook.

I don't want anything to eat." "The cooking's about as bad as usual," said Beaton.

After a moment he added, ironically, for he found Fulkerson's misery a kind of relief from his own, and was willing to protract it as long as it was amusing, "Why not try an envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary ?" "What do you mean ?" "Get that other old fool to go to Dryfoos for you!" "Which other old fool?
The old fools seem to be as thick as flies." "That Southern one." "Colonel Woodburn ?" "Mmmmm." "He did seem to rather take to the colonel!" Fulkerson mused aloud.
"Of course he did.

Woodburn, with his idiotic talk about patriarchal slavery, is the man on horseback to Dryfoos's muddy imagination.