"No, our cars are pretty well armored. You scored a couple of times on one of them, but no harm done. I reckon after what happened to Silas Cumshaw, you had a right to be suspicious."
I noticed that refreshments, including several bottles, had been placed on a big wicker table under the arched veranda.
"Can I offer you a drink, Captain, in token of mutual amity?" I asked.
"Well, now, I'd like to, Mr. Ambassador, but I'm on duty ..." he began.
"You can't be. You're an officer of the Planetary Government of New Texas, and in this Embassy, you're in the territory of the Solar League."
"That's right, now, Mr. Ambassador," he grinned. "Extraterritoriality. Wonderful thing, extraterritoriality." He looked at Hoddy, who, for the first time since I had met him, was trying to shrink into the background. "And diplomatic immunity, too. Ain't it, Hoddy?"
After he had had his drink and departed, we all sat down. Thrombley began speaking almost at once.
"Mr. Ambassador, you must, you simply must, issue a public statement, immediately, sir. Only a public statement, issued promptly, will relieve the crisis into which we have all been thrust."
"Oh, come, Mr. Thrombley," I objected. "Captain Nelson'll take care of all that in his report to his superiors."
Thrombley looked at me for a moment as though I had been speaking to him in Hottentot, then waved his hands in polite exasperation.