Comically abashed, Johnny Kent mumbled an apology for making such an uproar, at which the elderly gentleman bowed acknowledgment and said to the perturbed and rumpled Strothers:
“My dear baron, will you be good enough to explain?”
“These ruffians insisted on seeing you, Your Majesty, and when I tried to discover their business they called me names and assaulted me,” sputtered the young man in a heat of virtuous indignation.
“He was afraid of the truth,” cried O’Shea. “We came to tell Your Majesty that he has cooked up a job to cheat ye out of six thousand pounds, and we can prove it up to the hilt. We caught him with the goods.”
“That sounds a whole lot better to me than diplomacy,” approvingly exclaimed Johnny Kent.
Bewildered by the vehemence of these outspoken visitors, King Osmond I of Trinadaro turned to the sullen minister of finance and inquired, still with his placid kindliness of manner:
“These men do not look like ruffians, my dear baron. What are their names, and who are they? And what is the meaning of this grave charge they bring against your integrity?”
“I am O’Shea, shipmaster, hailing from the port of New York,” spoke up the one.
“I am Johnny Kent, chief engineer to Captain Mike O’Shea,” said the other, “and I hail from the State o’ Maine. And we can show you our papers. We didn’t lose ’em in the Bay of Biscay.”
Strothers stood biting his nails and shifting from one foot to the other, for once stripped of his adroit, plausible demeanor, nor could he find, on the spur of the moment, the right word to say. The royal personage said it for him.