“By Jove, I believe I can guess it. Splendid. There was an American, a newspaper man, on the train, represents the most sensational papers in the States; he was dying to get the secrets of your prisons at first hand, and it’s just like him to have played for this arrest. You’ll have a flaring description of the one he’s in sent across the Atlantic. Lovely!” and I laughed with unnecessary heartiness. “You’d better get him out as soon as you can.”
His eye kindled with anger.
“If there has been a conspiracy, monsieur, it will not help you now, and he will pay the penalty. We are not to be fooled with.”
“That’s just the point. The worse you treat him, the better he’ll like it, and the more his papers will make of it,” I replied, taking out my cigar case.
“Where are his papers, monsieur?” he retorted pointedly.
I grew serious and looked up at him out of the corner of my eyes.
“Are we to talk about—papers yet, Prince?”
His momentary discomfiture was a thing of joy to me.
“You do not realize the fix you have got him into.”
“No indeed, for I don’t believe he’s in any fix at all. By the way, shall I have time to smoke a cigar before I see his Majesty?”