“All yet seems well, and if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
The king’s a beggar now the play is done:
All is well ended, if this suit be won.”
He did not know it at the time, but prior to his coming the whole story of his adventure had been related and discussed, much to the entertainment of the party in general and to the intense edification and delight of young Edson in particular, who resolved to make to his chief, the Ambassador, a full report of the extraordinary affair, with a view to having it forwarded to Washington to be filed among the State archives, as indicative of a vulnerable point in Budavia’s boasted supremacy in statecraft. The aptness of the quotation, therefore, was more generally appreciated than Grey had any notion it would be, and the hilarious approbation of his auditors was consequently a good deal of a surprise.
Nicholas Van Tuyl, however, leaned over in the midst of the cheering, to tell him that the plot of his play and the part he had enacted were known to the company. The news was not ungrateful, for from the moment of his entrance he had felt a natural restraint, which was now relieved. Very soon the matter came up again, and he related his experience at the hospital, which was listened to with the deepest interest.
“Under the circumstances,” observed Sinclair Edson when Grey had finished, “it is not surprising that the extradition proceedings have been withdrawn.”
“Withdrawn?” exclaimed Grey, in amazement. “If it be true I should say it were most surprising.”
“We had a cable to that effect yesterday before I left Paris,” continued the secretary. “They were withdrawn at the instance of your partner, Mr. Mallory.”
“That is inexplicable,” Grey commented. “He doesn’t know anything more now than he did a week ago.”
Van Tuyl drained his wine-glass and wiped his lips with his napkin.
“Oh, yes he does, Carey,” he said, “he knows pretty much about it. I took the liberty of cabling to him all I knew. Besides, that whole business was a mare’s nest. If you hadn’t disappeared there would never have been any prosecution. Any one knows that a partner can’t be held for borrowing from his own firm, and unless I’m very much mistaken you were in a position to turn over real estate worth several times the amount secured on the bonds.”
“That is very true,” Grey replied, smiling, “but, strange as it may seem, that view of the situation never occurred to me before.”