While he was thus frothing and foaming, I took my hat, and, passing quietly through the ranks of his household, descended the stairs, and proceeded into the street.
I reached the “Vittoria” in no bland humor. I must own that I was flurried and irritated in no common degree. I was too much excited to be able, clearly, to decide how far the insult I had received required explanation and apology, or if it had passed the limits in which apology is still possible.
Perhaps, thought I, if I call him out, he 'll hand me over to the police; perhaps he 'll have me sent over the frontier. Who knows what may be the limit to a minister's power? While I was thus speculating and canvassing with myself, a card was presented to me by the waiter,—“Mr. Sponnington, Attaché, H.M.'s Legation, Naples,”—and as suddenly the owner of it entered the room.
He was a fair-faced, blue-eyed young man, very shortsighted, with a faint lisp and an effeminate air. He bowed slightly as he came forward, and said, “You 're Mr. Goss-lett, ain't you?” And not waiting for any reply, he sat down and opened a roll of papers on the table. “Here are your instructions. You are to follow them when you can, you know, and diverge from them whenever you must. That is, do whatever you like, and take the consequences. Sir James won't see you again. He says you insulted him; but he says that of almost every one. The cook insults him when the soup is too salt, and I insulted him last week by writing with pale ink. But you 'd have done better if you 'd got on well with him. He writes home,—do you understand?—he writes home.”
“So do most people,” I said dryly.
“Ah! but not the way he does. He writes home and has a fellow black-listed. Two crosses against you sends you to Greece, and three is ruin! Three means the United States.”
“I assure you, sir, that as regards myself, your chief's good opinion or good word are matters of supreme indifference.”
Had I uttered an outrageous blasphemy, he could not have looked at me with greater horror.
“Well,” said he, at last, “there it is; read it over. Bolton will cash your bills, and give you gold. You must have gold; they 'll not take anything else. I don't believe there is much more to say.”
“Were you acquainted with Mr. St. John?” asked I.