A polite note was accordingly dispatched, and on Sunday morning Peiffer, decently clothed in a suit of serge, was shown into Slingsby's private sitting-room. He plunged at once into the story of his wanderings. We listened to it without a sign that we knew anything about it.
"So?" from time to time said Slingsby, with inflections of increasing surprise, but that was all. Then Peiffer went on to his grievances.
"Perhaps you have heard how I was treated by the Consuls?" he interrupted himself to ask suddenly.
"No," Slingsby replied calmly. "Continue!"
Peiffer wiped his forehead and his glasses. We were each one, in his way, all working for our respective countries. The work was honourable. But there were limits to endurance. All his fatigue and perils went for nothing in the eyes of comfortable officials sure of their salary. He had been fined; he had been threatened with imprisonment. It was unverschämt the way he had been treated.
"So?" said Slingsby firmly. There are fine inflections by which that simple word may be made to express most of the emotions. Slingsby's "So?" expressed a passionate agreement with the downtrodden Peiffer.
"Flesh and blood can stand it no longer," cried Peiffer, "and my heart is flesh. No, I have had enough."
Throughout the whole violent tirade, in his eyes, in his voice, in his gestures, there ran an eager, wistful plea that we should take him at his face value and believe every word he said.
"So I came to you," he said at last, slapping his knee and throwing out his hand afterwards like a man who has taken a mighty resolution. "Yes. I have no money, nothing. And they will give me none. It is unverschämt. So," and he screwed up his little eyes and wagged a podgy forefinger--"so the service I had begun for my Government I will now finish for you."
Slingsby examined the carpet curiously.