The comptroller purred with pleasure at Antonio's "Excellency," a word which he had only heard applied to the persons of ambassadors. He thanked Antonio and showed him out graciously. The next day Mr. Crowberry was reading such a letter as his assistant had asked for. Antonio, entering the Jermyn Street office as his chief was ending the perusal, noted with concern that there had been another bout of drinking. Suddenly Mr. Crowberry, flaming with rage, dashed the letter down on his desk and exploded like a shell. His fearful threats flew out like red-hot nails and the air seemed sulphurous with his blasphemies. His nouns and verbs were few, and the solid matter of his discourse could hardly be discerned through the lurid vapors of his cursings. He swore that, although he had been True Blue all his life, he would straightway turn Republican. Concerning the comptroller he was contradictory, first vowing that he would see him burning in hell before he would excuse him from receiving a single bottle, and then declaring that he would pour every drop of the liquid down the cur's throat. He added a rude expression about the young Queen, whereupon Antonio intervened. "All this is my doing," he said. "I asked the comptroller yesterday to write this letter." Mr. Crowberry swung round and faced him in speechless astonishment. "He told me flatly that he could neither receive nor pay for our wine for a very long time," Antonio explained. "He asked us to release him from the bargain. At first I was aghast. But a plan occurred to me. Perhaps I did wrong--" "Wrong?" roared Mr. Crowberry. "Wrong?" And he hurled out half a dozen fresh oaths. "I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Rocha," he bellowed. "You're a damned upstart, and it was a damned bad day for everybody when that silly old idiot Castro picked you up out of the gutter." "Mr. Austin Crowberry," flashed back Antonio in tones as sharp as knives, "you will be good enough not to insult me. If we begin comparing pedigrees it will not be to your advantage." "Pssh!" sneered the other, "you remind me of the damned Irish. Every drunken Paddy you meet is descended from a king. I never met a foreigner yet who didn't turn out to be a count or a marquis. Pah! Shut up. You make me sick." A tremendous effort enabled Antonio to hold his tongue and to move towards the door. But this silent move only served to drive his employer mad. "So this letter is your doing?" he roared, flinging himself with his back against the door-handle. "I thought--" Antonio began. "Thought? You thought? Who are you to begin thinking? For two pins I'd give you a damned good hiding." Antonio's face became as white as a sheet. There was no longer a monk in the room: only a man. He faced his employer with eyes which made him quail. But he did not lose his head. Suddenly he wheeled round and drew from a brass bowl on the table two of the tiny pins which were used to attach enclosures to letters.