“My dear Stubber, you are quite a proficient at state-craft,” said Upton, with the very least superciliousness in the accent.
“Well, I don't know, Sir Horace,” said the other, modestly, “but as my master's means are about the double of what they were when I entered his service, and as the people pay about one-sixth less in taxes than they used to do, mayhap I might say that I have put the saddle on the right part of the back.”
“Your foreign policy does not seem quite as unobjectionable as your home management. That was an ugly business about that boy you gave up to the Austrians.”
“Well, there were mistakes on all sides. You yourself, Sir Horace, gave him a false passport; his real name turns out to be Massy: it made an impression on me, from a circumstance that happened when I was a young fellow living as pad-groom with Prince Tottskoy. I went over on a lark one day to Capri, and was witness to a wedding there of a young Englishman called Massy.”
“Were you, then, present at the ceremony?”
“Yes, sir; and what's stranger still, I have a voucher for it.”
“A voucher for it. What do you mean?”
“It was this way, sir. There was a great supper for the country people and the servants, and I was there, and I suppose I took too much of that Capri wine; it was new and hot at the time, and I got into a row of some sort, and I beat the Deputato from some place or t' other, and got locked up for three days; and the priest, a very jolly fellow, gave me under his handwriting a voucher that I had been a witness of the marriage, and all the festivities afterwards, just to show my master how everything happened. But the Prince never asked me for any explanations, and only said he 'hoped I had amused myself well;' and so I kept my voucher to myself, and I have it at this very hour.”
“Will you let me see it, Stubber?”
“To be sure, sir, you shall have it, if I can lay my hand on 't in the course of the day.”