“I suspect I know it already,” muttered Tony.
“If you could only persuade my Lord to listen to you, and tell him the story as you told it to me, he 'd be more than a Secretary of State if he could stand it.”
“I have no great desire to be laughed at, Skeffy.”
“Not if it got you out of a serious scrape,—a scrape that may cost you your appointment?”
“Not even at that price.”
“I can't understand that; it is quite beyond me. They might put me into 'Joe Miller' to-morrow, if they 'd only gazette me Secretary of Embassy the day after. But here's the hotel; a good sleep will set you all right; and let me see you at breakfast as jolly as you used to be.”
CHAPTER XLVII. ADRIFT
The dawn was scarcely breaking as Tony Butler awoke and set off to visit the ships in the port whose flags proclaimed them English. There were full thirty, of various sizes and rigs; but though many were deficient in hands, no skipper seemed disposed to accept a young fellow who, if he was stalwart and well grown, so palpably pertained to a class to which hard work and coarse usage were strangers.
“You ain't anything of a cook, are you?” asked one of the very few who did not reject his demand at once.