"Hullo!" said Fred, and shook hands with the consul.

"Thought you were due to be sick for another week?" said Monty, closing
up the board.

"I was. I would have been. Bed would have done me good, and the
nurse is a darling, old enough to be Will's mother. But they put
a biped by the name of Peter Measel in the bed next mine. He's a
missionary on his own account, and keeps a diary. Seems be contributes
to the funds of a Welsh mission in France, and they do what he says.
He has all the people he disapproves of prayed for publicly by name
in the mission hall in Marseilles, with extracts out of his diary
by way of explanation, so that the people who pray may know what
they've got on their hands. The special information I gave him about
you, Monty, will make Marseilles burn! He's got you down as a drunken
pirate, my boy, with no less than eleven wives. But be asked me
one night whether I thought what he'd written about the nurse was
strong enough, and he read it aloud to me. You'd never believe what
the reptile had dared suggest in his devil's log-book! I'm expelled
for threatening to kill him!"

"The nurse was right," said the consul gloomily. "There'll be murder
enough hereabouts--and soon!"

He was a fairly young man yet in spite of the nearly white hair over
the temples. He measured his words in the manner of a man whose
speech is taken at face value.

"The missionaries know. The governments won't listen. I've been