"I wish to speak to the Ambassador on that point before I mention it to any one else," Dave answered.
"Have you told Dalzell?" pressed Jetson.
"I have not."
"He certainly hasn't," complained Danny Grin sadly. "Dave always tells me after he has told every one else."
"Danny boy," Dave rebuked him, "where do you hope to go after you die?"
"Paris," Dalzell answered promptly.
Breakfast lasted until word came that the Ambassador was ready to receive the two young officers from the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet. Then Jetson left his friends.
Mr. Caine, to whom Mr. Lupton presently introduced the ensigns, was a man in his fifties, rather bald, and with a decided stoop in his shoulders. At home he was a manufacturer of barbed wire, and his business, as Danny later suggested, had perhaps helped to give him some of his keenness and sharpness. He was slenderly fashioned, and reminded one, at first, of a professor in a minor college.
It was when the Ambassador transacted business that some of his sterling qualities came out. He was recognized as being one of the cleverest and ablest of American diplomats.
"I am glad to meet you, gentlemen," said the Ambassador, shaking hands with Dave and Dan and then motioning them to seats, which an attendant placed for them. "Mr. Lupton, you have doubtless had Jetson's assurance that these young men are the persons they claim to be?"