“Phonetic,” said Baltazar, impatiently. “It’s as impossible for an ordinary Chinaman to say James Burden, as for you to pronounce a word with the Zulu click in it. It’s the nearest they could get. It’s good Chinese. So I adopted it. I’m known by it all through Southern China. Let me get on with what I was saying. To go back to my friends as Chi Wu Ting and pretend I was acting in their interests, while all the time I was acting in the interests of the British Government—well, I’m damned if I would entertain the idea for a second.”
The Foreign Office winced at the oath, although it damned lustily in private.
“But if Chi Wu Ting goes back, as you say, accredited——?”
“That’s a different matter altogether.”
“There’s still the question of—of remuneration,” said the Foreign Office.
“I’m by way of being a rich man,” said Baltazar. “I didn’t spend the eighteen golden years of my life in the interior of China for my health.”
The Foreign Office beamed. “That simplifies things enormously.”
“It generally does,” replied Baltazar.
A month later the Foreign Office made him the offer which his sense of personal dignity demanded from them; and, honour being satisfied, he declined it. He could do better work for his country in London, said he, than in again burying himself alive for an indefinite number of years in China. The Foreign Office regretted his decision; but it gave him to understand that the offer would always remain open. They parted on terms of the most cordial politeness; but if the Foreign Office had heard the things Baltazar said of it, its upstanding hair would have raised its own roof off.
“Three months,” he cried to Marcelle, “playing the fool, wasting their time and mine, when the whole thing could have been done in five minutes.”