"If you will be lenient to my persistency, sir, I would like
to remind you--"

Chilcote lifted his head with a flash of irritability.

"Confound it, Blessington!" he exclaimed. "Am I never to be
left in peace? Am I never to sit down to a meal without
having work thrust upon me? Work--work--perpetually work? I
have heard no other word in the last six years. I declare
there are times"--he rose suddenly from his seat and turned to
the window--"there are times when I feel that for sixpence
I'd chuck it all--the whole beastly round--"

Startled by his vehemence, Blessington wheeled towards him.

"Not your political career, sir?"

There was a moment in which Chilcote hesitated, a moment in
which the desire that had filled his mind for months rose to
his lips and hung there; then the question, the incredulity in
Blessington's face, chilled it and it fell back into silence.

"I--I didn't say that," he murmured. "You young men jump to
conclusions, Blessington."

"Forgive me, sir. I never meant to imply retirement. Why,
Rickshaw, Vale, Cressham, and the whole Wark crowd would be
about your ears like flies if such a thing were even breathed
--now more than ever, since these Persian rumors. By-the-way,
is there anything real in this border business? The 'St.