“You have courage?”
“No; I have impertinence—that is all. There will be a storm—a newspaper storm. The embassies will be busy; in the English Parliament some pompous fool will ask a question, and be snubbed for his pains. In the Chambre the newspaper men will rant and challenge each other in the corridors; and it will blow over. In the meantime we have got what we want, and we can hide it till we have need of it. Your Reverence and I have met difficulties together before this one.”
But Signor Bruno was not inclined to fall in with these optimistic views.
“I am not so sure,” he said, “that we have got what we want. There has been no acknowledgment of receipt of the last parcel—in the usual way—the English Standard.”
“What was the last parcel?”
“Fifty thousand cartridges.”
“But they were sent?”
“Yes; they were despatched in the usual way; but, as I say, they have not been acknowledged. There may have been some difficulty on the other side. Our police are not so easy-going as these coastguard gentlemen.”
“Well,” said the aristocrat, with that semi-bantering lightness of manner which sometimes aggravated, and always puzzled, his colleagues, “we will not give ourselves trouble over that: the matter is out of our hands. Let us rather think of ourselves. Have you money?”
“Yes—I have sufficient.”