r!

Till long after midnight did they fence with each other, with buttons on
their foils--very harmlessly, no doubt, but very uselessly too: Brammell
could make nothing of a man who neither wanted to hear about finance or
taxation, court scandal, schools, or public robbery; and though he could
not in so many words ask--What have you come for? why are you here? he said
this in full fifty different ways for three hours and more.

'You make some stay amongst us, I trust?' said the Minister, as his guest
rose to take leave. 'You mean to see something of this interesting country
before you leave?'

'I fear not; when the repairs to the steamer enable her to put to sea, they
are to let me know by telegraph, and I shall join her.'

'Are you so pressed for time that you cannot spare us a week or two?'

'Totally impossible! Parliament will sit in January next, and I must hasten
home.'

This was to imply that he was in the House, or that he expected to be, or
that he ought to be, and even if he were not, that his presence in England
was all-essential to somebody who was in Parliament, and for whom his
information, his explanation, his accusation, or anything else, was all
needed, and so Brammell read it and bowed accordingly.

'By the way,' said the Minister, as the other was leaving the room, and
with that sudden abruptness of a wayward thought, 'we have been talking of
all sorts of things and people, but not a word about what we are so full of
here. How is this difficulty about the new Greek envoy to the Porte to end?
You know, of course, the Sultan refuses to receive him?'

'The Pasha told me something of it, but I confess to have paid little
attention. I treated the matter as insignificant.'

'Insignificant! You cannot mean that an affront so openly administered
as this, the greatest national offence that could be offered, is
insignificant?' and then with a volubility that smacked very little of want
of preparation, he showed that the idea of sending a particular man, long
compromised by his complicity in the Cretan revolt, to Constantinople, came
from Russia, and that the opposition of the Porte to accept him was also
Russian. 'I got to the bottom of the whole intrigue. I wrote home how
Tsousicheff was nursing this new quarrel. I told our people facts of the
Muscovite policy that they never got a hint of from their ambassador at St.
Petersburg.'

'It was rare luck that we had you here: good-night, good-night,' said