"Yes; we shall be wanted up in the Baltic at once. We are very good friends with Russia; but no dog is really respected in this world unless he shows that he can bite as well as bark."
"I shall not be respected, because I can neither bark nor bite. What will they do with me?"
"We shall put you on shore at Plymouth, and send you up to London—with a guard of honour."
"And what will the guard of honour do with me?"
"Ah! for that I cannot answer. He will treat you with all kind of respect, no doubt."
"It has not occurred to you to think," said I, "where he will deposit me? Why should it do so? But to me the question is one of some moment. No one there will want me; nobody knows me. They to whom I must be the cause of some little trouble will simply wish me out of the way; and the world at large, if it hears of me at all, will simply have been informed of my cruelty and malignity. I do not mean to destroy myself."
"Don't do that," said the lieutenant, in a piteous tone.
"But it would be best, were it not that certain scruples prevent one. What would you advise me to do with myself, to begin with?" He paused before he replied, and looked painfully into my face. "You will excuse my asking you, because, little as my acquaintance is with you, it is with you alone of all Englishmen that I have any acquaintance."
"I thought that you were intent about your book."
"What shall I do with my book? Who will publish it? How shall I create an interest for it? Is there one who will believe, at any rate, that I believe in the Fixed Period?"