"I agree," said Sant. And the admiral shook hands with a gentleman who had been pardoned by an amiable Governor.
"And of course," Cartwright added as he escorted the admiral and Selwyn into the passage, "if there should be a shindy at Smith's and any of your men are in it, we shall all explain that it was owing to your having been put away. And two wrongs then will make it right. I guess the newspapers will call it square."
"Exactly so," said the admiral.
And when he reached the Triumphant he had very nearly worked out the plan by which the row at Shanghai Smith's was to occur.
"I'll just go over it with you, Selwyn," he said, when he reached his cabin again. "Now you must remember I rely on your discretion. A wrong step may land us in trouble with the authorities and the Admiralty. There never was a Government department yet which wouldn't resent losing a fine chance of a paper row, and if they catch me settling this matter out of hand, my name is Dennis, as the Americans say. And I don't want your name to be Dennis either."
"Well, what do you propose, Sir Richard?" asked Selwyn.
"This is rightly your show and mine," said the admiral. "I won't have any one else in it, that I can help. I ought to speak to Hamilton, but I won't. I'll keep him out of the trouble"—for Hamilton was the captain of the Triumphant. "I suppose the men here are really fond of me?" said the admiral interrogatively.
"They have no monopoly of that," said Selwyn.
"Is there any one of them you could drop a hint to, that you could trust?"
"Of course," said Selwyn; "there's Benson, whose father works for mine as gardener. We used to fight in the toolhouse at home, and now he would jump overboard if I asked him."