“Then he has more sense about him than I gave him credit for,” said Archibald Currie.
“Why should a man like Morton go to Patagonia?” continued Green. “He has an independent fortune and doesn’t want the money. He’d have been sure to have something comfortable in Europe very soon if he had waited, and was much better off as second at a place like Washington. I was quite surprised when he took it.”
“Patagonia isn’t bad at all,” said Currie.
“That depends on whether a man has got money of his own. When I heard about the Paragon and Bell Trefoil at Washington, I knew there had been a mistake made. He didn’t know what he was doing. I’m a poor man, but I wouldn’t take her with £5,000 a year, settled on myself.” Poor Mounser Green!
“I think she’s the handsomest girl in London,” said Hoffmann, who was a young man of German parentage and perhaps of German taste.
“That may be,” continued Green;—“but, heaven and earth! what a life she would lead a man like the Paragon! He’s found it out, and therefore thought it well to go to South America. She has declined already, I’m told; but he means to stick to the mission.” During all this time Mounser Green was smoking his cigar with his back to the fire, and the other clerks looked as though they had nothing to do but talk about the private affairs of ministers abroad and their friends. Of course it will be understood that since we last saw John Morton the position of Minister Plenipotentiary at Patagonia had been offered to him and that he had accepted the place in spite of Bragton and of Arabella Trefoil.
At that moment a card was handed to Mounser Green by a messenger who was desired to show the gentleman up. “It’s the Paragon himself,” said Green.
“We’ll make him tell us whether he’s going out single or double,” said Archibald Currie.
“After what the Rufford people said to me I’m sure he’s going to marry her,” said young Glossop. No doubt Lady Penwether had been anxious to make it understood by everyone connected with the family that if any gossip should be heard about Rufford and Arabella Trefoil there was nothing in it.
Then the Paragon was shown into the room and Mounser Green and the young men were delighted to see him. Colonial governors at their seats of government, and Ministers Plenipotentiary in their ambassadorial residences are very great persons indeed; and when met in society at home, with the stars and ribbons which are common among them now, they are less indeed, but still something. But at the colonial and foreign offices in London, among the assistant secretaries and clerks, they are hardly more than common men. All the gingerbread is gone there. His Excellency is no more than Jones, and the Representative or Alter Ego of Royalty mildly asks little favours of the junior clerks.
“Lord Drummond only wants to know what you wish and it shall be done,” said Mounser Green. Lord Drummond was the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the day. “I hope I need hardly say that we were delighted that you accepted the offer.”
“One doesn’t like to refuse a step upward,” said Morton; “otherwise Patagonia isn’t exactly the place one would like.”
“Very good climate,” said Currie. “Ladies I have known who have gone there have enjoyed it very much.”
“A little rough I suppose?”
“They didn’t seem to say so. Young Bartletot took his wife out there—just married. He liked it. There wasn’t much society, but they didn’t care about that just at first.”
“Ah;—I’m a single man,” said Morton laughing. He was too good a diplomat to be pumped in that simple way by such a one as Archibald Currie.
“You’ll like to see Lord Drummond. He is here and will be glad to shake hands with you. Come into my room.” Then Mounser Green led the way into a small inner sanctum in which it may be presumed that he really did his work. It was here at any rate that he wrote the notes on official note paper.
“They haven’t settled as yet how they’re to be off it,” said Currie in a whisper, as soon as the two men were gone, “but I’ll bet a five-pound note that Bell Trefoil doesn’t go out to Patagonia as his wife.”
“We know the Senator here well enough.” This was said in the inner room by Mounser Green to Morton, who had breakfasted with the Senator that morning and had made an appointment to meet him at the Foreign Office. The Senator wanted to secure a seat for himself at the opening of Parliament which was appointed to take place in the course of the next month, and being a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the American Senate of course thought himself entitled to have things done for him by the Foreign Office clerks. “Oh yes, I’ll see him. Lord Drummond will get him a seat as a matter of course. How is he getting on with your neighbour at Dillsborough?”
“So you’ve heard of that.”
“Heard of it! who hasn’t heard of it?”—At this moment the messenger came in again and the Senator was announced. “Lord Drummond will manage about the seats in the House of Lords, Mr. Gotobed. Of course he’ll see you if you wish it; but I’ll take a note of it.”
“If you’ll do that, Mr. Green, I shall be fixed up straight. And I’d a great deal sooner see you than his lordship.”
“That’s very flattering, Mr. Gotobed, but I’m sure I don’t know why.”
“Because Lord Drummond always seems to me to have more on hand than he knows how to get through, and you
