adjective
peculiarly English.

When I come to think of it, perhaps there is no one in His Britannic
Majesty's dominions so wholeheartedly English as Charlie Webster. He is
an Englishman of a larger mould than we are accustomed to to-day. He
seems rather to belong to a former more rugged era--an Englishman say of
Elizabeth's or Nelson's day; big, rough, and simple, honest to the core,
slow to anger, but terrible when roused--a true heart of oak, a man with
massive, slow-moving, but immensely efficient, "governing" brain. A born
commander, utterly without fear, yet always cool-headed and never rash.
If there are more Englishmen like him, I don't think you will find them
in London or anywhere in the British Isles. You must go for them to the
British colonies. There, rather than at home, the sacred faith in the
British Empire is still kept passionately alive. And, at all events,
Charlie Webster may truly be said to have one article of faith--the
glory of the British Empire. To him, therefore, the one unforgivable sin
is treason against that; as probably to die for England--after having
notched a good account of her enemies on his unerring rifle--would be
for him not merely a crown of glory, but the purest and completest joy
that could happen to him.

Therefore it was--somewhat, I will own, to my disappointment--that for
him my story had but one moral--the treason of Henry P. Tobias, Jr. The
treasure might as well have had no existence, so far as he was
concerned, and the grim climax in the cave drew nothing from him but a
preoccupied nod. And John Saunders was little more satisfactory. Both of
them allowed me to end in silence. They both seemed to be thinking
deeply.

"Well?" I said, somewhat dashed, as one whose story has fallen down on
an anti-climax. Still no response.

"I must say you two are a great audience," I said presently, perhaps
rather childishly nettled.

"What's happened to your imagination!"

"It's a very serious matter," said John Saunders, and I realised that it
was not my crony, but the Secretary to the Treasury of his Britannic
Majesty's Government at Nassau that was talking. As he spoke, he looked
across at Charlie Webster, almost as if forgetting me. "Something should
be done about it, eh, Charlie?" he continued.

"---- traitor!" roared Charlie, once more employing that British
adjective. And then he turned to me:

"Look here, old pal, I'll make a bargain with you, if you like. I
suppose you