He was greatly interested in this handsome stranger with the dark beard and romantic intensity of gaze, and speculated wildly on his nationality and circumstances as he walked from the hotel. He thought he might be a Spaniard, until, remembering the late Spanish Minister, who could not pay his passage back to Spain, and only got as far as Corfu by selling all the clothes and furniture he had never paid for, he decided that the Spaniards were a miserable race. The Italians, he thought, were not much better, and Reineke as little resembled a Frenchman as he did a German.
“You might go to Poros,” he said to Gustav. “It is a pretty place, and the trip would do you good.”
“Why not one of the Ægean Islands?” suggested Gustav.
“Certainly. There is Tenos. I live there myself, and I have a brother whom you could stay with for a day or two.”
Selaka coloured with a sudden astonishing thought. This stranger was rich, perhaps unmarried. He might fall in love with Inarime. Now he was bent on urging the trip to Tenos, before undreamed of. “I’ll telegraph to my brother, and you can travel in the _Sphacteria_. The captain is my godson.”
“You are very kind, doctor, and I am ashamed to accept such favours from you,” said Reineke, truthfully, in surprised assent.
“Oh, it is a pleasure. We Greeks love to see strangers.”
“Then I will go to-morrow. I want to get well as soon as possible, for I have much to do here,” said Reineke.
Crossing Constitution Square the king of Tenos was hilariously accosted by one of his satellites, a member of the Opposition and a lawyer of parchment exterior, whose career had been varied as it was unremunerative. Starting in life as domestic servant, he had found leisure to attend the University, and buy legal books with his perquisites. His stern profession by no means impeded the unsuccessful editorship of several newspapers--comic, political and satirical, each of which enjoyed a kind of ephemeral reputation and lasted about six months, leaving the venturous editor with a lighter pocket, and now he was Selaka’s colleague in obstruction.
“This is the best answer to my telegram, Constantine,” said Stavros. “What a day we’ll have of it in the Boulé[A]--eh?”
“Oh, ay, the Budget Speech. Leave it to me, Stavros. We’ll egg them on to an explosion. Keep to the caricatures. Collars and cuffs Minister! Ouf! Have you been pumping our friends about the Mayoralty?”