eased to read
the note.

'It is impossible, my lord; I cannot deny my own handwriting.'

'Annihough will find some road out of it,' muttered the other. '_You_ were
a fool, and mistook your instructions, or the _constable_ was a fool and
required a misdirection, or the _Fenian_ was a fool, which he would have
been if he gave the pledge you asked for. Must go, all the same.'

'But I am quite ready to go, my lord,' rejoined Walpole angrily. 'There is
no need to insist so often on that point.'

'Who talks--who thinks of _you_, sir?' cried the other, with an irritated
manner. 'I speak of myself. It is _I_ must resign--no great sacrifice,
perhaps, after all; stupid office, false position, impracticable people.
Make them all Papists to-morrow, and ask to be Hindus. They've got the
land, and not content if they can't shoot the landlords!'

'If you think, my lord, that by any personal explanation of mine, I could
enable the Minister to make his answer in the House more plausible--'

'Leave the plausibility to himself, sir,' and then he added, half aloud,
'he'll be unintelligible enough without _you_. There, go, and get some
breakfast--come back afterwards, and I'll dictate my letter of resignation.
Maude has had a letter from Atlee. Shrewd fellow, Atlee--done the thing
well.'

As Walpole was near the door, his Excellency said, 'You can have Guatemala,
if they have not given it away. It will get you out of Europe, which is the
first thing, and with the yellow fever it may do more.'

'I am profoundly grateful, my lord,' said he, bowing low.

'Maude, of course, would not go, so it ends _that_.'

'I am deeply touched by the interest your lordship vouchsafes to my
concerns.'

'Try and live five years, and you'll have a retiring allowance. The last
fellow did, but was eaten by a crocodile out bathing.' And with this he
resumed his _Times_, and turned away, while Walpole hastened off to his
room, in a frame of mind very far from comfortable or reassuring.

CHAPTER LII

A CHANCE AGREEMENT

As Dick Kearney and young O'Shea had never attained any close intimacy--a
strange sort of half-jealousy, inexplicable as to its cause, served to keep
them apart--it was by mere accident that the two young men met one morning
after breakfast in the garden, and on Kearney's offer of a cigar, the few
words that followed led to a conversation.

'I cannot pretend to give you a choice Havana, like one of Walpole's,' said
Dick, 'but