of the over-draft?" I said; "he'll probably
want to know."

"Better not say anything about that," said Godfrey. "Tell him I had a
business engagement."

Godfrey's necessity gave me my opportunity. I had Conroy all to myself
after dinner, and I sounded him very cautiously about the title. The
business turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. At
first Conroy was singularly obtuse. He did not seem to understand what
I was hinting at. There was really no excuse for him. Our surroundings
were very well suited for delicate negotiations. I had given him a
bottle of champagne at dinner. I had some excellent port on the table
afterwards. My dining-room is a handsome apartment, a kind of large
hall with a vaulted roof. The light of the candles on the table
mingled in a pleasantly mysterious way with the twilight of the summer
evening. The long windows lay wide open and a heavy scent of lilies
crept into the room. The lamp on the sideboard behind me lit up the
impressive portrait of my great grandfather in the uniform of a
captain of volunteers, the Irish volunteers of 1780. Any one, I should
have supposed, would have walked delicately among hints and
suggestions in such an atmosphere, among such surroundings. But Conroy
would not. I was forced at last to speak rather more plainly than I
had intended to. Then Conroy turned on me.

"What does your Government think I should want the darned thing for?"
he said.

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose the usual reasons."

"What are they?" said Conroy, "for I'm damned if I know."

"Well," I said, "when you put it that way I don't know that I can
exactly explain. But most people like it. I like it myself, although
I'm pretty well used to it. I imagine it would be much nicer when you
came to it quite fresh. If you happen to be going over to London, you
know, it's rather pleasant to have the fellow who runs the
sleeping-car bustling the other people out of the way and calling you
'my lord.'"

Conroy sat in grim silence.

"There's more than that in it," I said. "That's only an example, quite
a small example of the kind of thing I mean. But those little things
count, you know. And, of course, the extra tip that the fellow expects
in the morning wouldn't matter to you."

Conroy still declined to make any answer. I began to feel hot and
flurried.

"There are other points, too," I went on. "For instance a quite pretty
girl called Tottie Pringle wants to marry my nephew Godfre