"Well, I received your letter," said the old man after a moment. "But what was the nonsensical reason you gave me for not doing your duty?"
It was the brusque tone he had always taken with his secretaries when they were in the wrong, but it was a blunder to adopt it with Gordon, who flushed up to the forehead, wheeled round from the window, walked up to the desk, and said, beginning a little hesitatingly but gathering strength as he went on—
"My reason, Father ... for not doing my ... what I was sent to do ... was merely that I found I could not do it without being either a rascal or a fool."
The old man flinched and his glasses fell. "Explain yourself," he said.
"I came to the conclusion, sir, that you were mistaken in this matter."
"Really!"
"Possibly misinformed——"
"Indeed!"
"By British officials who don't know what they are talking about or by native scoundrels who do."
Not for forty years had anybody in Egypt spoken to the Consul-General like that, but he only said—