“Russia and England meditate a war,” said he, “the two cabinets are embroiled; and I am hastening with an autograph letter from one great personage to another to say with what regret he countersigns a policy so distasteful, and how sincerely he preserves the tie of personal friendship. Believe me,” said he, laughing, “we are the professed traitors of the world; but we are simple-hearted and honest, if weighed in the scale with those who employ us!”
If I was amused by much of what he said, I was also piqued at the tone of superiority he assumed towards me, as he very frankly intimated that by the low estimation in which I held my walk in life I had contrived to make it still meaner and lower.
“It rests with ourselves,” said he, “to be the diplomatists of Europe. Your men who pore over treaties and maps and protocols may plan and scheme to their hearts' content; but we can act. If I choose to change the destination of this letter, and deliver it at Berlin or Vienna; or if I go forward now to Moscow, and convey the answer to Paris, instead of London, do you not suppose that the world would feel it, and to its very centre, too?”
He paused for a minute or two, and then added,—
“You are wondering all this while within yourself why one who knows so well the price of treason has not earned it; and shall I tell you? I am not always aware of the value of my tidings. I may be charged with a secret treaty. It may be a piece of court gossip, the mishap of an archduchess, or the portrait of a court favorite. This very letter—whose contents I believe I know—I am perhaps deceived in. Who can tell, till it be opened, if my treachery be worth a farthing?”
If there was anything wanting to the measure of abhorrence with which I regarded my career, it was amply supplied by such doctrines as these; but probably much of the disgust they were calculated to inspire was lost in the amusement the narrator afforded me. Everything about him bespoke levity rather than systematic rascality; and yet he was one who appeared to have thought profoundly on men and the world.
“I 'll wager a crown,” said he, as we jumped into the boat that was to row us on shore, “that you are fully bent on hiding yourself and your shame in the 'Golden Plover,' or the 'Pilot's Rest,' or some such obscure hotel; but this you shall not for the present. You are my guest while we stay at Hamburg. Unfortunately, the time must needs be brief to both of us. To-morrow we shall be on the road; but to-day is our own.”
I did not consent without reluctance; but he would not take a refusal, and so I yielded; and away we went together to the “Schleswicker Hof,” a magnificent hotel in the finest quarter of the town.
“No need to show your passport to any one,” said he to me, in a whisper, as we entered the house; “I 'll arrange all.”
By the time I had refreshed myself with a bath and dressed, the waiter came to say that Count Ysaffich was waiting dinner for me; and though I gladly would have asked a few particulars of one with whose name and person he seemed evidently acquainted, there was no time allowed me, as he led the way to a splendid apartment, where the table was already spread.