The King nodded abstractedly, and sat him down at the table, which was littered over with papers, and finally seized upon a couple of letters, which he read through, comparing them one with the other.
"You can give me, then, information concerning Cumberland," he said, changing to a tone sharp and precise; and he proceeded to put to me a question or two concerning the numbers of his adherents and the strength of their adhesion.
"Your Majesty," I replied, "my news is all hearsay. For this inheritance has come to me unexpected and unsought. The last year I have lived in Paris."
He drummed with his fingers upon the table, like one disappointed.
"You know nothing, then, of the county?"
"I have never so much as set foot in it. I was born in Shropshire."
"Then, your Majesty," Lord Bolingbroke interrupted, "neither is he known there. There is an advantage in that which counterbalances his lack of information."
The King raised his eyes to my face, and looked at me doubtfully, with a pinching of the lips.
"He is young for the business," he said, "and one may perhaps think"—he smiled as he added the word—"precipitate."
My hopes, which had risen with a bound at the hint that some special service might be required of me, sank like a pebble in a pool. I cudgelled my brains for some excuse, my recollections for some achievement, however slight, which might outweigh my indiscretion. But I had not a single deed to my name: and what excuse could acquit me of a hot-headed thoughtlessness? I remained perforce silent and abashed; and it was in every way fortunate that I did, for my Lord Bolingbroke tactfully put forward the one argument that could serve my turn. Said he quite simply—