"Forty thousand pounds in gold."
"Good heavens!" said the Lieutenant, and mopped his brow. "But I didn't know anything about it!"
"That doesn't prevent you from having participated in one of the most rascally plots of your day and generation; from being a party in an attempt to overthrow, by the most open and shameless bribery, a treaty pending between the government you serve and mine."
"But, if this gets out, I'll be cashiered from the navy."
"Oh, I don't think they'd stop there," said the Secretary reassuringly. "Not with the proof of that receipt."
"Good Lord, I forgot that! Here, take it, will you?"
"Certainly. Suppose we open it and see if it proves my assertion," and, suiting the action to the word, he placed in the Lieutenant's shaking hands a receipt of deposit in the Victoria Street Branch of the Bank of England, by Miss Isabelle Fitzgerald, kindness of Lieutenant J. Kingsland, of forty thousand pounds.
"Can't you help me?" he asked.
"It rests entirely with me."
"Then you will?"