“And what reply did they make you?” asked Maitland.
“They shoved me on the retired list; and Curtis, the Secretary, said, 'I had to suppress your letter, or my Lords would certainly have struck your name off the Navy List,'—a thing I defy them to do; a thing the Queen could n't do!”
“Will you try one of these?” said Maitland, opening his cigar-case; “these are stronger than the pale ones.”
“No; I can't smoke without something to drink, which I foresee I shall not have here.”
“I deplore my inhospitality.”
“Inhospitality! why, you have nothing to say to it. It is old mother Maxwell receives us all here. You can be neither hospitable nor inhospitable, so far as I see, excepting, perhaps, letting me see a little more of that fire than you have done hitherto, peacocking out the tail of your dressing-gown in front of me.”
“Pray draw closer,” said Maitland, moving to one side; “make yourself perfectly at home here.”
“So I used to be, scores of times, in these very rooms. It's more than five-and-twenty years that I ever occupied any others.”
“I was thinking of going back to the drawing-room for a cup of tea before I resumed my work here.”
“Tea! don't destroy your stomach with tea. Get a little gin,—they 've wonderful gin here; I take a glass of it every night Beck mixes it, and puts a sprig of, not mint, but marjoram, I think they call it I 'll make her mix a brew for you; and, by the way, that brings me to what I came about.”