. With this intention, I
repaired one day to the Mission, and having waited for some time, till
I saw a person leave the cabinet, from whom I learned that the Envoy was
at home, I advanced to the door. "Out, sir," said the porter, barring
the way. I pushed him aside, with the air of one who was not to be
trifled with, and, opening the door, walked in.

Whether it was that the suddenness of my appearance unmanned him,
or that something in my manner showed there was no time for further
deception, he arose to receive me, and handed me a chair.

"I have come, sir," said I, calmly but resolutely, "to ask if, in the
matter which I intrusted to your hands, any progress has been made,
or if I am still to be the patient recipient of notes which tell me
nothing?"

"What if there be nothing to tell, sir?" said the young diplomatist, now
recovering his self-possession, and standing with his back to the fire,
in the very easiest of attitudes.

"I will beg of you to be more explicit," said I.

"You shall not have to complain of me on that score, sir," said he, with
a most affected air of courtesy; "and, as brevity is the very essence of
clearness, I may as well state that on representing the case of El Conde
de Cregano to the Minister of Spain, he very gravely assured me that
I was inventing a personage, for that no such name existed among the
nobility of his land. The dignity may be recognized in Mexico," added
he, "but the Mexician Minister is equally perverse, and disclaims having
so much as heard of you. I spoke of your wealth and great treasures,
and they actually were rude enough to laugh,--no at you, sir, don't be
angry,--but at _me_. The Spanish Ambassador, indeed, said that nothing
was more common than for Carlist agents of inferior station to assume
styles and titles which might entitle them to greater consideration if
taken prisoner, and that in this wise you might have succeeded to your
countship; but that to real rank, he persisted in asserting you had no
claim whatever. This you must allow, sir, is awkward."

"For you, certainly, it will prove so," said I, haughtily. "You may rely
upon it, sir, that your career as a diplomatist will end where it begun.
You have dared to insult one whose slightest word could crush you, did
he not feel that such an exercise of influence would be ludicrously
disproportioned to the object it was directed against. There, sir, there
is a written statement of my claim; there a full and e