“You have good reason to be happy, for I suppose you are on the way to meet Miss Ethel Lambold,” suggested Louis, with something like a smile, though it was a very sickly one. “Well, hardly, my dear Louis,” he replied, chuckling again as though he was still enjoying his victory over the young millionaire. “Do you know, my beloved friend, that I am a man who despises a liar?” “Indeed! Then of what an amount of self-condemnation you must be capable!” exclaimed Louis, looking sharply at the wheelman. “Why, if his satanic majesty should come on board of the Oxford to look for a liar, I should not know where to hide you.” “Because you are not well enough acquainted with the cabin, hold, and steerage of this vessel,” replied Frinks, laughing at his companion’s remark. “But if you put me out of sight, he would be sure to take you; and perhaps he would if he saw me.” “No, sir; I think he would agree with me that you are the champion liar of this mundane sphere; and he would want you for another, where you would feel more at home in spite of the heat.” “I was about to say that I despised a liar.” “You did say that; and the royal father of lies would have decided to take you as the person he wanted.” “I am not tempted to reply to that charge, for what I said was strictly true. I did not finish what I had to say before you picked me up. In the line of his duty a man must sometimes tell falsehoods; and what I intended to say was that a man or boy who tells an unnecessary lie was to be despised; and it must be left to a person’s own conscience to determine whether his lies are necessary or not. The general of an army”-- “I beg to suggest that you are not the general of an army,” interposed Louis, still looking about him to increase his knowledge of the situation, and feeling very little interest in the conversation. “Excuse me, but I am a general, at least in a figurative sense,” replied Frinks quickly. “My commander-in-chief sent me on shore to visit Von Blonk Park, and procure the attendance on board of this vessel of Mr. Louis Belgrave and his most respectable mother; and I beg to submit that I have done so. In carrying out my instructions I was under the necessity of uttering what would certainly have been regarded as falsehoods under other circumstances, to say nothing of having to overhear conversations at the fat man’s house and elsewhere.” “I think I will not dispute this point any longer,” added the young man, weary of the conversation. “Knowing you to be a reasonable young man, I was sure I could convince you that I was right,” answered Frinks, with the air of a victor. “I will leave the matter to the decision of his satanic majesty when he comes for you; and I am sure he has no more faithful subject than yourself.”