He was signalling
wildly for a taxi-cab. He grasped my arm with his left hand and shook
it with frenzied vehemence.

"Just off to the Foreign Office," he said. "Can't wait to talk now.
Haven't a minute. See you later."

There was no reason why he should have stopped to talk to me even
if he had not been going to the Foreign Office. I should certainly
not have tried to detain him. Bland-Potterton bores me. I did
indeed see him later, though I certainly did not want to. It was at
a reception, a gorgeous but uncomfortable affair in Ellesmere House.
Bland-Potterton was in a corner with a highly decorated foreigner who
looked like a stage brigand. I found out afterwards that he was the
Megalian ambassador. Bland-Potterton was talking to him with intense
earnestness.

Another day he dashed at me in the smoking-room of the club. I was
half asleep at the moment and desired nothing in the world so much as
to be let alone. But Bland-Potterton woke me by whispering in my ear.
He might just as well have spoken in the ordinary way. There was only
one other man in the room and he was quite asleep. Besides,
Bland-Potterton's whisper carries further than most men's
conversational voices.

"Have you," he hissed, "any news from Gorman? A letter? A message?
Anything?"

"No," I said, "I haven't. Why the deuce should I? Is he gun-running,
or threatening to vote against the Government, or likely to be
arrested?"

"No, no, no. Nothing of that sort. Nothing to do with Ireland. It's
this unfortunate business with the Emperor. But I mustn't say any
more. The Embassies are nervous, you know."

"I don't know," I said. "Which Embassies?"

"The--the--the--well, practically all except the Chinese."

"Wonderful people the Chinese," I said. "So calm. We ought to imitate
them more than we do."

Bland-Potterton did not think so. He went on fussing. He rushed about
London, creating small whirlpools behind him as if he had been a
motor-boat. I had the greatest difficulty at times in not being sucked
into his wake.

All this Gorman would have enjoyed hugely. I felt sorry that he was
missing it. However, in the end he had his compensation.

One day during the last week in July--Gorman is no more to be relied
on for an exact date than Donovan or the Queen--a steamer arrived in
Salissa. She was a remarkable looking steamer and flew a flag which
neither Gorman nor Donovan had ever seen before. She had two small
guns, mounted one on the fore-d