Abanazar laughed a little nervous, misleading, official laugh.
“Oh, it wasn’t much. I was at Simla in the spring, when our Stalky, out of his snows, began corresponding direct with the Government.”
“After the manner of a king,” suggested Dick Four. “My turn now, Dick. He’d done a whole lot of things he shouldn’t have done, and constructively pledged the Government to all sorts of action.”
“’Pledged the State’s ticker, eh?” said McTurk, with a nod to me.
“About that; but the embarrassin’ part was that it was all so thunderin’ convenient, so well reasoned, don’t you know? Came in as pat as if he’d had access to all sorts of information—which he couldn’t, of course.”
“Pooh!” said Tertius, “I back Stalky against the Foreign Office any day.”
“He’d done pretty nearly everything he could think of, except strikin’ coins in his own image and superscription, all under cover of buildin’ this infernal road and bein’ blocked by the snow. His report was simply amazin’. Von Lennaert tore his hair over it at first, and then he gasped, ‘Who the dooce is this unknown Warren Hastings? He must be slain. He must be slain officially! The Viceroy’ll never stand it. It’s unheard of. He must be slain by his Excellency in person. Order him up here and pitch in a stinger.’ Well, I sent him no end of an official stinger, and I pitched in an unofficial telegram at the same time.”
“You!” This with amazement from the Infant, for Abanazar resembled nothing so much as a fluffy Persian cat.
“Yes—me,” said Abanazar. “’Twasn’t much, but after what you’ve said, Dicky, it was rather a coincidence, because I wired:
“‘Aladdin now has got his wife,
Your Emperor is appeased.
I think you’d better come to life:
We hope you’ve all been pleased.’