"Is this a fact?"
"It is a fact, your Excellency. And if your Excellency will once more deign to grant me your attention, I will put you in possession of a secret."
"Go on," said the Consul-General.
Instinctively the suave old judge drew his legs up on his chair and fingered his amber beads.
"Your Excellency will perhaps remember that owing to differences of opinion with the Khedive—may Allah bless him!—you were compelled to require that for a while he should leave the country."
"Well?"
"He went to Constantinople with the intention of laying his grievances against England before His Serenity the Sultan—may the Merciful give him long life!"
"Well?"
"The Sultan is a friend of England, your Excellency—the Khedive was turned away."
"And then?"