officialdom was pleased to assure me could not be so well
accomplished by any other person of its acquaintance. That was why
Alexis Saberevski laughed.

"Is your resignation still on file? Or is it only lying on the table
awaiting action, Daniel?" he asked me, and there was just a touch of
ironic suggestion in his manner, which nettled me.

"The resignation is a fact this time," I replied. "I have earned a
period of rest, and I propose to take it."

"Going abroad, Derrington?"

"No."

"Prefer to undergo the process of dry rot, here in New York?"

"Yes; for a time at least."

"Is there nothing on the other side of the water, that attracts you?"

"Nothing at all."

He switched his right leg to his left knee and blew a cloud of smoke
into the air.

"You're not a lazy chap, Dan," he remarked, as if he were deeply
considering the verity of that statement. "One wouldn't pick you out as
a blase individual who is tired of everything the world has to offer.
You are as filled with energy and nervous force as any chap I ever
knew; and you are not yet thirty-five."

"Quite true," I admitted.

"Yet, like a craft that has fought its way through stormy seas around
the world, you sit there and try to assure me that you are content to
tie up against a rotting wharf, in an odorous slip, and pass the rest
of your days in inaction. It isn't like you, Dan."

"It looks very enticing to me just now, however."

"The trouble is," he said, "that your American diplomacy and your
amazing politics over here, offer no opportunities to a man of your
talents. You should go against the pricks of European intrigue. You
ought to butt in, as you fellows express it, upon French statecraft
which leaves nothing to be desired in the way of double dealings. You
should try Austrian lies, or German brutalities, or Italian and Spanish
sophistry, or English stupidity. Believe me, one of these would offer
many points of interest which should interest and engage your
attention."

"Why not Russian cruelty?" I asked. "That seems to be the only
important nationality you have omitted."

"Why not?" he repeated after me.

"You seem to have tired of it yourself, Saberevski."

He shrugged his shoulders, leaning back in his chair, and the
suggestion of a shadow passed across his handsome face.

"Dan," he said with an entire change of tone that startled me into
renewed interest, "I haven't any doubt that you have always regarded me
as a queer sort o