hall have a regular
Neapolitan banquet, washed down by some old Capri. There, spell out that
newspaper till I dress and if any one rings in the mean while, say his
Excellency has just been sent for to Caserta by the King, and will not
be back before to-morrow." As he reached the door he put his head in
again, and said, "Unless, perchance, it should be my godfather, when, of
course, you 'll keep him for dinner."

CHAPTER XLVI. "THE BAG NO. 18"

Almost overlooking the terraced garden where Damer and Tony dined, and
where they sat smoking till a late hour of the night, stood a large
palace, whose vast proportions and spacious entrance, as well as
an emblazoned shield over the door, proclaimed it to belong to the
Government. It was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and here, now, in
a room projecting over the street beneath, and supported on arches,
sat the Minister himself, with our two acquaintances, Mait-land and
Caffarelli.

Maitland was still an invalid, and rested on a sofa, but he had
recovered much of his former looks and manner, though he was dressed
with less care than was his wont.

The Minister--a very tall thin man, stooped in the shoulders, and with
a quantity of almost white gray hair streaming on his neck and
shoulders--walked continually up and down the room, commenting and
questioning at times, as Maitland read forth from a mass of documents
which littered the table, and with which Caffarelli supplied him,
breaking the seals and tearing open the envelopes before he gave them to
his hand.

Though Maitland read with ease, there was yet that half-hesitation in
the choice of a word, as he went on, that showed he was translating;
and indeed once or twice the Prince-Minister stopped to ask if he had
rightly imparted all the intended force to a particular expression.

A white canvas bag, marked "F. O., No. 18," lay on the table; and it
was of that same bag and its possible fortunes two others, not fully one
hundred yards off, were then talking: so is it that in life we are often
so near to, and so remote from, the inanimate object around which our
thoughts and hopes, and sometimes our very destinies, revolve.

"I am afraid," said the Prince, at last, "that we have got nothing here
but the formal despatches, of which Ludolf has sent us copies already.
Are there no 'Private and Confidential'?"

"Yes, here is one for Sir Joseph Trevor himself," said Caffarelli,
handing a square-shaped letter to Maitland