Administrators on thy return to Tangier. Here are orders for
the money."

"I absolutely refuse to accept a portion of what my Government
demands. I will either receive the whole, or I will return
empty-handed, and report on the treacherous way in which I have been
treated. I am thoroughly sick of the procrastinating and prevaricating
ways of this country--a disgrace to the age."

"And we are infinitely more sick of thy behaviour and thine abuse of
the favours we have granted thee. Our lord has expressly instructed
me to tell thee that in future no excess of the rights guaranteed to
foreigners by treaty will be permitted on any account. Thy protection
certificates to be valid must be endorsed by our Foreign Commissioner,
and the nature of the goods thou importest free of duty as for thyself
shall be strictly examined, as we have the right to do, that no more
defrauding of our revenue be permitted."

"Your words are an insult to my nation," exclaimed the Ambassador,
rising, "and shall be duly reported to my Government. I cannot sit
here and listen to vile impeachments like these; you know them to be
false!"

"That is no affair of mine; I have delivered the decision of our lord,
and have no more to say. The claims we refuse are all of them unjust,
the demands of usurers, on whom be the curse of God; and demands for
money which has never been stolen, or has already been paid; every one
of them is a shameful fraud, God knows. Leeches are only fit to be
trodden on when they have done their work; we want none of them."

"Your language is disgraceful, such as was never addressed to me in my
life before; if I do not receive an apology by noon to-morrow, I will
at once set out for Tangier, if not for Greece, and warn you of the
possible consequences."

* * * * *

The excitement in certain circles in Athens on the receipt of the
intelligence that the Embassy to Morocco had failed, after all the
flourish of trumpets with which its presumed successes had been
hailed, was great indeed. One might have thought that once more the
brave Hellenes were thirsting for the conquest of another Sicily, to
read the columns of the _Palingenesia_, some of the milder paragraphs
of which, translated, ran thus:--

"A solemn duty has been imposed upon our nation by the studied
indignities heaped upon our representative at the Court of
Morocco. Greece has been challenged, Europe defied, and the whol