on from his
box. The minister on rising had nothing to urge but vague promises of
speedy payment; but he utterly lacked the confident effrontery of his
chief, and nobody was deceived by his weak protestations. I left the
House in a considerable uproar, and strolled on to the house of a
friend of mine, one Mme. Devarges, the widow of a French gentleman
who had found his way to Whittingham from New Calendonia. Politeness
demanded the assumption that he had found his way to New Caledonia
owing to political troubles, but the usual cloud hung over the precise
date and circumstances of his patriotic sacrifice. Madame sometimes
considered it necessary to bore herself and others with denunciations
of the various tyrants or would-be tyrants of France; but, apart from
this pious offering on the shrine of her husband's reputation, she
was a bright and pleasant little woman. I found assembled round her
tea-table a merry party, including Donna Antonia, unmindful of her
father's agonies, and one Johnny Carr, who deserves mention as being
the only honest man in Aureataland. I speak, of course, of the place
as I found it. He was a young Englishman, what they call a "cadet," of
a good family, shipped off with a couple of thousand pounds to make
his fortune. Land was cheap among us, and Johnny had bought an estate
and settled down as a landowner. Recently he had blossomed forth as a
keen Constitutionalist and a devoted admirer of the President's, and
held a seat in the assembly in that interest. Johnny was not a clever
man nor a wise one, but he was merry, and, as I have thought it
necessary to mention, honest.

"Hallo, Johnny! Why not at the House?" said I to him. "You'll want
every vote to-night. Be off and help the ministry, and take Donna
Antonia with you. They're eating up the Minister of Finance."

"All right! I'm going as soon as I've had another muffin," said
Johnny. "But what's the row about?"

"Well, they want their money," I replied; "and Don Antonio won't give
it them. Hence bad feeling."

"Tell you what it is," said Johnny; "he hasn't got a--"

Here Donna Antonia struck in, rather suddenly, I thought.

"Do stop the gentleman talking politics, Mme. Devarges. They'll spoil
our tea-party."

"Your word is law," I said; "but I should like to know what Don
Antonio hasn't got."

"Now do be quiet," she rejoined; "isn't it quite enough that he has
got--a charming daughter?"

"And a most valuable one," I replied, with a b