“So after all the Paragon left her whatever he could leave,” said Currie in the same room at the Foreign Office. A week had passed since the last conversation, and at this moment Mounser Green was not in the room.
“Oh, dear no,” said young Glossy. “She doesn’t have Bragton. That goes to his cousin.”
“That was entailed, Glossy, my boy.”
“Not a bit of it. Everybody thought he would leave the place to another Morton, a fellow he’d never seen, in one of those Somerset House Offices. He and this fellow who is to have it, were enemies—but he wouldn’t put it out of the right line. It’s all very well for Mounser to be down on me, but I do happen to know what goes on in that country. She gets a pot of money, and no end of family jewels; but he didn’t leave her the estate as he might have done.”
At that moment Mounser Green came into the room. It was rather later than usual, being past one o’clock;—and he looked as though he were flurried. He didn’t speak for a few minutes, but stood before the fire smoking a cigar. And there was a general silence—there being now a feeling among them that Arabella Trefoil was not to be talked about in the old way before Mounser Green. At last he spoke himself. “I suppose you haven’t heard who is to go to Patagonia after all?”
“Is it settled?” asked Currie.
“Anybody we know?” asked Hoffmann.
“I hope it’s no d⸺ outsider,” said the too energetic Glossop.
“It is settled;—and it is somebody you know;—and it is not a d⸺ outsider; unless, indeed, he may be considered to be an outsider in reference to that branch of the service.”
“It’s some consul,” said Currie. “Backstairs from Panama, I’ll bet a crown.”
“It isn’t Backstairs, it isn’t a consul. Gentlemen, get out your pocket-handkerchiefs. Mounser Green has consented to be expatriated for the good of his country.”
“You going to Patagonia!” said Currie. “You’re chaffing,” said Glossop. “I never was so shot in my life,” said Hoffmann.
“It’s true, my dear boys.”
“I never was so sorry for anything in all my born days,” said Glossop, almost crying. “Why on earth should you go to Patagonia?”
“Patagonia!” ejaculated Currie. “What will you do in Patagonia?”
“It’s an opening, my dear fellow,” said Mounser Green leaning affectionately on Glossop’s shoulder. “What should I do by remaining here? When Drummond asked me I saw he wanted me to go. They don’t forget that kind of thing.” At that moment a messenger opened the door, and the Senator Gotobed, almost without being announced, entered the room. He had become so intimate of late at the Foreign Office, and his visits were so frequent, that he was almost able to dispense with the assistance of any messenger. Perhaps Mounser Green and his colleagues were a little tired of him;—but yet, after their fashion, they were always civil to him, and remembered, as they were bound to do, that he was one of the leading politicians of a great nation. “I have secured the hall,” he said at once, as though aware that no news could be so important as the news he thus conveyed.
“Have you indeed?” said Currie.
“Secured it for the fifteenth. Now the question is—”
“What do you think,” said Glossop, interrupting him without the slightest hesitation. “Mounser Green is going to Patagonia, in place of the poor Paragon.”
“I beg to congratulate Mr. Green with all my heart.”
“By George I don’t,” said the juvenile clerk. “Fancy congratulating a fellow on going to Patagonia! It’s what I call an awful sell for everybody.”
“But as I was saying I have the hall for the fifteenth.”
“You mean to lecture then after all,” said Green.
“Certainly I do; I am not going to be deterred from doing my duty because I am told there is a little danger. What I want to know is whether I can depend on having a staff of policemen.”
“Of course there will be police,” said Green.
“But I mean some extra strength. I don’t mind for myself, but I should be so unhappy if there were anything of a commotion.” Then he was assured that the officers of the police force would look to that, and was assured also that Mounser Green and the other gentlemen in the room would certainly attend the lecture. “I don’t suppose I shall be gone by that time,” said Mounser Green in a melancholy tone of voice.
LXVI
“I Must Go”
Rufford, March 5th.
My dear Miss Trefoil,
I am indeed sorry that I should have offended you by acceding to a suggestion which, I think I may say, originated with your mother. When she told me that her circumstances and yours were not in a pecuniary point of view so comfortable as they might be, I did feel that it was in my power to alleviate that trouble. The sum of money mentioned by my lawyer was certainly named by your mother. At any rate pray believe that I meant to be of service.
As to naming a place where we might meet, it really could be of no service. It would be painful to both of us and could have no good result. Again apologizing for having inadvertently offended you by adopting the views which Lady Augustus
