"How he 'd have liked to have heard about Hewlett and Bell! They 're gone for close on two millions; they 'll not pay over sixpence in the pound, and Rinker, the Bombay fellow that went in for cotton, has caught it too! Cotton and indigo have ruined more men than famine and pestilence. I 'd be shot, if I was a Lord of the Council, if I would n't have a special prayer for them in the Litany. Well, Temple, and how are you, all this while?" said he, turning abruptly to the diplomatist, who sat evidently inattentive to the dialogue.
"What, sir, did you address _me?_" cried he, with a look of astonishment and indignation.
"I should think I did; and I never heard you were Premier Earl, or that other thing of England, that you need look so shocked at the liberty! You Foreign Office swells are very grand folk to each other; but take my word for it, the world, the real world, thinks very little of you."
Temple arose slowly from his place, threw his napkin on the table, and turning to Augustus, said, "You 'll find me in the library," and withdrew.
"That's dignified, I take it," said Cutbill; "but to my poor appreciation, it's not the way to treat a guest under his father's roof."
"A guest has duties, Mr. Cutbill, as well as rights. My brother is not accustomed to the sort of language you address to him, nor is he at all to blame if he decline to hear more of it."
"So that I am to gather you think he was right."
"It just comes to what I said one day to Harding; the sailor is the only fellow in the house a man can get on with. I 'm sorry, heartily sorry for him."
The last words were in a tone of sincere feeling; and Augustus asked, "What do you mean by sorry? what has happened to him?"
"Have n't you seen it in the 'Times'--no, you could n't, though--it was only in this morning's edition, and I have it somewhere. There 's to be a court-martial on him. He's to be tried on board the 'Ramsay,' at Portsmouth, for disobedience and indiscipline, and using to his superior officer--old Colthurst--words unbecoming the dignity of the service and the character of an officer, or the dignity of an officer and the character of the service--it's all the one gauge; but he 'll be broke and cashiered all the same."