least he made more
than one draft--and was at last in great doubt whether a long statement or
a few and very decided lines might be better. How he ultimately determined,
and what he said, cannot be given here; for, unhappily, the conditions
of my narrative require I should ask my reader to accompany me to a very
distant spot and other interests which were just then occupying the
attention of an almost forgotten acquaintance of ours, the redoubted Joseph
Atlee.

CHAPTER LXII

WITH A PASHA

Joseph Atlee had a very busy morning of it on a certain November day at
Pera, when the post brought him tidings that Lord Danesbury had resigned
the Irish viceroyalty, and had been once more named to his old post as
ambassador at Constantinople.

'My uncle desires me,' wrote Lady Maude, 'to impress you with the now
all-important necessity of obtaining the papers you know of, and, so far
as you are able, to secure that no authorised copies of them are extant.
Kulbash Pasha will, my lord says, be very tractable when once assured
that our return to Turkey is a certainty; but should you detect signs of
hesitation or distrust in the Grand-Vizier's conduct, you will hint that
the investigation as to the issue of the Galatz shares--"preference
shares"--may be reopened at any moment, and that the Ottoman Bank agent,
Schaffer, has drawn up a memoir which my uncle now holds. I copy my lord's
words for all this, and sincerely hope you will understand it, which, I
confess,_ I_ do not at all. My lord cautioned me not to occupy your time or
attention by any reference to Irish questions, but leave you perfectly free
to deal with those larger interests of the East that should now engage you.
I forbear, therefore, to do more than mark with a pencil the part in the
debates which might interest you especially, and merely add the fact,
otherwise, perhaps, not very credible, that Mr. Walpole _did_ write the
famous letter imputed to him--_did_ promise the amnesty, or whatever be the
name of it, and _did_ pledge the honour of the Government to a transaction
with these Fenian leaders. With what success to his own prospects, the
_Gazette_ will speak that announces his appointment to Guatemala.

'I am myself very far from sorry at our change of destination. I prefer the
Bosporus to the Bay of Dublin, and like Pera better than the Phoenix. It
is not alone that the interests are greater, the questions larger, and the
consequences more important to th