“We will ring up full speed ahead and find this king. If the minister of finance is at the Carleton Hotel, ’tis a good bet that His Majesty is not far away. That busy young man will not separate himself from a good thing.” The fashionable Carleton was unfamiliar territory to the inquisitive mariners, but they strolled boldly through the corridors until they fetched up in front of a desk presided over by an immaculate clerk with a languid manner who appeared indifferent to their wants. After waiting several minutes for some recognition, Captain Michael O’Shea sweetly remarked: “Will ye answer a civil question or will I climb over the counter and jolt you wide-awake?” The languid person looked attentively at the resolute features of the speaker and hastily answered: “Beg pardon--beg pardon--what can I do for you, sir?” “Tell me if a king is stopping in this hotel of yours, and does he have a minister of finance called Baron Strothers?” “Ah, you mean His Majesty, King Osmond of Trinadaro,” and the clerk delivered these resounding syllables with unction. “Yes, he is a guest of the hotel.” “He is a real one, do you get that?” soberly whispered O’Shea to his comrade before he again addressed the clerk. “We wish to see him on important business. We will write our names on a card.” “Baron Strothers receives such callers as are personally unknown to His Majesty,” the clerk explained. “We do not wish to see the young man,” said O’Shea. “My orders are to send all cards and messages to him,” persisted the clerk. The two visitors drew apart from the desk and put their heads together. “The minister of finance will not let us get within a cable’s length of his boss if he thinks we are seafarin’ men,” whispered O’Shea. “The swindler may have took notice of us in the Jolly Mermaid,” growled Johnny Kent. “We might send up a card and make headway as far as this Strothers person. Then I could knock him down and sit on his head while you rummaged the royal apartments and found the king.” “Your methods might strike these hotel people as violent, Johnny. You’re a good man at sea, but I would not call ye a diplomat. Anyhow, we will take a chance of running the blockade that this crooked minister of finance has established to prevent honest men from talking to his employer.” Returning to the desk, O’Shea picked up a pen and wrote on a blank card: “_Captain Michael O’Shea and John Kent, Esq., U. S. A., to see King Osmond on a matter that he will find interesting._” Promptly in answer to this message came word that Baron Strothers would see the gentlemen. A hotel attendant conducted them to a suite on the second floor. At the threshold of a sort of anteroom they were met by the brisk, self-possessed young man, who gazed sharply at the sunburnt strangers, hesitated a trifle, and invited them to enter. Offering them cigars, he bade them be seated, and again scrutinized them as if striving to recall where he might have seen them elsewhere.