“Well done, my Lord. That’s a reason that would never have entered my head!”
“And then, my dear Paganel, you can gain the gold medal anyway. There is as much to be done, and sought, and investigated, and discovered in the Cordilleras as in the mountains of Thibet.”
“But the course of the Yarou-Dzangbo-Tchou—what about that?”
“Go up the Rio Colorado instead. It is a river but little known, and its course on the map is marked out too much according to the fancy of geographers.”
“I know it is, my dear Lord; they have made grave mistakes. Oh, I make no question that the Geographical Society would have sent me to Patagonia as soon as to India, if I had sent in a request to that effect. But I never thought of it.”
“Just like you.”
“Come, Monsieur Paganel, will you go with us?” asked Lady Helena, in her most winning tone.
“Madam, my mission?”
“We shall pass through the Straits of Magellan, I must tell you,” said Lord Glenarvan.
“My Lord, you are a tempter.”