Coutlass drew in his breath for the gods of Greece alone knew what heights of fury next.

But interruption entered.
"There, that's enough of you! Get to the back of the line!" The man who had promised us berths came abruptly through the barrier, and unlike the babu did not appear afraid of any one.

The Greek let out his gathered breath with a bark of fury, like a seal coming up to breathe.

Taking that for a symptom of opposition the newcomer, very cool in snow-white uniform and helmet, seized Coutlass by the neck and hustled him, arguing like a boiler under pressure, through the crowd.
The Greek was three inches taller, and six or eight inches bigger round the chest, but too astonished to fight back, and perhaps, too, aware of the neighborhood of old da Gama's fort, where more than one Greek was pining for the grape and olive fields of Hellas.

With a final shove the railway official thrust him well out into the road.
"If you miss the train, serve you right!" he said.