‘Leave the plausibility to himself, sir,’ and then he added, half aloud, ‘he’ll be unintelligible enough without _you_. There, go, and get some breakfast--come back afterwards, and I’ll dictate my letter of resignation. Maude has had a letter from Atlee. Shrewd fellow, Atlee--done the thing well.’ As Walpole was near the door, his Excellency said, ‘You can have Guatemala, if they have not given it away. It will get you out of Europe, which is the first thing, and with the yellow fever it may do more.’ ‘I am profoundly grateful, my lord,’ said he, bowing low. ‘Maude, of course, would not go, so it ends _that_.’ ‘I am deeply touched by the interest your lordship vouchsafes to my concerns.’ ‘Try and live five years, and you’ll have a retiring allowance. The last fellow did, but was eaten by a crocodile out bathing.’ And with this he resumed his _Times_, and turned away, while Walpole hastened off to his room, in a frame of mind very far from comfortable or reassuring. CHAPTER LII A CHANCE AGREEMENT As Dick Kearney and young O’Shea had never attained any close intimacy--a strange sort of half-jealousy, inexplicable as to its cause, served to keep them apart--it was by mere accident that the two young men met one morning after breakfast in the garden, and on Kearney’s offer of a cigar, the few words that followed led to a conversation. ‘I cannot pretend to give you a choice Havana, like one of Walpole’s,’ said Dick, ‘but you’ll perhaps find it smokeable.’ ‘I’m not difficult,’ said the other; ‘and as to Mr. Walpole’s tobacco, I don’t think I ever tasted it.’ ‘And I,’ rejoined the other, ‘as seldom as I could; I mean, only when politeness obliged me.’ ‘I thought you liked him?’ said Gorman shortly. ‘I? Far from it. I thought him a consummate puppy, and I saw that he looked down on us as inveterate savages.’ ‘He was a favourite with your ladies, I think?’ ‘Certainly not with my sister, and I doubt very much with my cousin. Do _you_ like him?’ ‘No, not at all; but then he belongs to a class of men I neither understand nor sympathise with. Whatever _I_ know of life is associated with downright hard work. As a soldier I had my five hours’ daily drill and the care of my equipments, as a lieutenant I had to see that my men kept to their duty, and whenever I chanced to have a little leisure, I could not give it up to ennui or consent to feel bored and wearied.’ ‘And do you mean to say you had to groom your horse and clean your arms when you served in the ranks?’ ‘Not always. As a cadet I had a soldier-servant, what we call a “Bursche”; but there were periods when I was out of funds, and barely able to grope my way to the next quarter-day, and at these times I had but one meal a day, and obliged to draw my waist-belt pretty tight to make me feel I had eaten enough. A Bursche costs very little, but I could not spare even that little.’ ‘Confoundedly hard that.’