“I 'll go to sea,--I 'll go before the mast; there must be many a vessel here wants a hand, and in a few weeks' practice I'll master the whole thing; my old yachting experiences have done that for me.” “My poor Tony,” said Skeffy, rising and throwing his arms round him, “I'll not listen to it. What! when you have a home here with me, are you to go off and brave hardship and misery and degradation?” “There's not one of the three,--I deny it. Coarse food and hard work are no misery; and I 'll be hanged if there's any degradation in earning one's bread with his hands when his head is not equal to it.” “I tell you I 'll not suffer it. If you drive me to it, I 'll prevent it by force. I am her Majesty's Charge d'Affaires. I 'll order the consul to enroll you at his peril,--I 'll imprison the captain that takes you,--I 'll detain the ship, and put the crew in irons.” “Before you do half of it, let me have some dinner,” said Tony, laughing, “for I came on shore very hungry, and have eaten nothing since.” “I'll take you to my favorite restaurant, and you shall have a regular Neapolitan banquet, washed down by some old Capri. There, spell out that newspaper till I dress and if any one rings in the mean while, say his Excellency has just been sent for to Caserta by the King, and will not be back before to-morrow.” As he reached the door he put his head in again, and said, “Unless, perchance, it should be my godfather, when, of course, you 'll keep him for dinner.” CHAPTER XLVI. “THE BAG NO. 18” Almost overlooking the terraced garden where Damer and Tony dined, and where they sat smoking till a late hour of the night, stood a large palace, whose vast proportions and spacious entrance, as well as an emblazoned shield over the door, proclaimed it to belong to the Government. It was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and here, now, in a room projecting over the street beneath, and supported on arches, sat the Minister himself, with our two acquaintances, Mait-land and Caffarelli. Maitland was still an invalid, and rested on a sofa, but he had recovered much of his former looks and manner, though he was dressed with less care than was his wont. The Minister--a very tall thin man, stooped in the shoulders, and with a quantity of almost white gray hair streaming on his neck and shoulders--walked continually up and down the room, commenting and questioning at times, as Maitland read forth from a mass of documents which littered the table, and with which Caffarelli supplied him, breaking the seals and tearing open the envelopes before he gave them to his hand. Though Maitland read with ease, there was yet that half-hesitation in the choice of a word, as he went on, that showed he was translating; and indeed once or twice the Prince-Minister stopped to ask if he had rightly imparted all the intended force to a particular expression.