“Why?” asked George with something like fright upon his honest if oleaginous face.
“Well, never mind,” said Dolly. “It must have been pretty tough. Were you blown out to sea?”
George Mulross Demaine’s only reply was to feel inside his coat for the place where pockets are often constructed for the well-to-do, but where no pocket seemed to exist. He made five or six good digs for it, but it was not there. He looked up huntedly and said: “Wait a minute.” He put his hand into his waistcoat. There again there was no receptacle, but that which should have held his watch—and even the young idealism of the Prime Minister permitted him to wonder why no watch was there. Then George did what I hope no member of the governing class has ever done before—he felt in his trousers pocket, and thence he pulled out a bit of paper.
“Yes,” he said, concealing the writing from them, “You’re quite right. I was blown out to sea. I had a”—(here he peered closely at the paper and apparently could not make out a word.) “Oh yes,” he said, “a terrible time.” His diction was singularly monotonous. “I-thought-I-should-never-have-survived-that-terrible-night. A-foreign-ship-passed-me-but-the-scoundrels-left-me-to-my-fate. I-was-nearly-dead-when-under-the-first-rays-of-morning-I-saw-the-British-flag-and-my-heart-leaped-within-me.”
Edward, though not usually impetuous, bereft him of the document, and as he did so the Prime Minister saw the square firm characters.
“Good lord!” shouted the Premier, “It’s Bill!”
And it was the writing of William Bailey.
“William’s been very good to me, if you mean that,” said Demaine reproachfully.
The Prime Minister burst into the first hearty laugh he had enjoyed in fifteen years. After all, men like Bailey were of some use in the world!
In spite of Dimmy’s obvious choler, with the tears of laughter in his eyes, and interrupted by little screams of merriment, the Prime Minister completed the reading.