From which it may be gathered that Tuppy had fallen from grace. He came on by the next boat—two days later, with a tentative grievance. That is to say, it was a grievance that he was prepared, to withdraw in the absence of any reproach on the part of the Duke.
Tuppy had been spending a day with a friend who was Deputy-Adjutant Something or other to the forces.
"I didn't mistake the hour, Monty, old feller," he explained eagerly, "I was down on the dashed pier, with all my traps, gazin' pensively at the lappin' waves an' the sea-gulls circlin' on rigid pinions an' all that, waitin' for you, when it occurred to me that you were a doosid long time comin'. So I drove to your hotel an' found you'd left the day before."
They sat in the big hall of the Continental Hotel. From the narrow street without, came the sing-song intonation of young Islam at its lessons, and the pattering of laden donkeys. Tuppy talked to the Duke but was looking elsewhere.
Hank had found some countrywomen of his, and surrounded by all that was best and beautiful in Ohio, was solemnly narrating for their especial benefit a purely fanciful description of a Moorish harem. One face in that circle attracted Tuppy strangely.
"Then there's the laundry wife who does the washin', an' the cook wife who does the cooking, an' the washin'-up wife, an' the sock wife who darns the socks——"
"Oh, Mr. Hankey, you're jollying us?"
"No, sir," said Hank firmly, "when I was American Minister at Fez in '82...."
Tuppy's explanations, having been satisfactorily exploited, the Duke listened with amusement to the procession of unfounded statements Hank was leading forth for the benefit of the fair Americans.
"Do you know, Mr. Hankey," said one suddenly, "we really don't believe a word you're saying. For one thing I'm sure you was never the favourite of the Sultan or we should have read about it in the New York Sunday papers. And I'm certain you never married the Sultan's daughter, Fatima, because you'd just be ashamed to confess it to a lot of nice American girls. You're just a new-comer like the American we met on the Fez Road who asked our guide where the nearest Beer Hall was."