"Not much!" cried the journalist. "It's my last chance. And if you won't help me—why, I must help myself."
"What do you wish me to do?"
"Turn 'em out of Blanford."
"Impossible!"
"But your father?"
"How dare you mention my father's name in this connection? I won't have him dragged into publicity to sell your dirty rag of a newspaper!" Cecil exploded, thoroughly beside himself at the thought of such a dreadful possibility.
The journalist nodded his head gravely. Banborough's fierce defence of the Bishop he attributed to far other grounds than those on which it was really based. It justified him to the tramp's suspicions that his Lordship was actually connected with the plot.
"Well," he said, with a fair pretence of backing down, "there's no need of getting so hot about it. Of course I don't want to make myself disagreeable."
"Neither do I," replied his host. "Only we may as well understand each other. You're quite welcome to come to the palace as long as you remember to be a gentleman before you are a journalist. But if you forget it, I'll be forced to treat you as you deserve," and turning on his heel, he left Marchmont chewing the ends of his sandy moustache with a grim avidity that boded ill for the peace of the Bishop and his household.
The American told himself that he must work carefully. Banborough would watch him and probably put the others on their guard. And moreover, he would not hesitate to dismiss him from the palace, which, apart from the unpleasantness of the operation, would be well-nigh fatal to the success of the scheme the journalist was maturing. Decidedly the highest caution was essential, but he must work quickly, for there was no time to be lost. Marchmont therefore proceeded to pump the first member of the company he came across. This happened to be Spotts, who was in rather a bad humour, the result of a morning spent with the Bishop in the cobwebby heights of a neighbouring church-tower.