‘But what does she know of me?’

‘Oh, I may have mentioned your name,’ he explained indifferently, and Conway smiled.

‘Besides,’ said Conway, ’the Meteor has transformed you into a public character.  One knows of your movements.’

’What I don’t see is how Miss Le Mesurier could have known that you had landed yesterday,’ commented Mallinson.

’I was interviewed by the Meteor on Plymouth Quay.  You received the note, you say, this evening.  She may have seen the interview.’

Drake called to a waiter and ordered him to bring a copy of the paper.  Conway took it and glanced at the first page.

‘Yes, here it is.’

He read a few lines to himself, and burst into a laugh.

‘Guess how it begins?’

‘I know,’ said Drake.

‘A sovereign you don’t.’

Drake laid a sovereign on the table.  Conway followed his example.

‘It begins,’ said Drake, ‘with a Latin quotation, O si sic omnes!’

‘It begins,’ corrected Conway, pocketing the money, ’with very downright English’; and he read, ’Drake, with the casual indifference of the hardened filibuster, readily accorded an interview to our representative on landing from the Dunrobin Castle yesterday afternoon!’

Drake snatched the paper out of Conway’s hand, and ran his eye down the column to see whether his words had been similarly transmuted by the editorial alchemy.  They were printed, however, as they had been spoken, but interspersed with comments.  The editor had contented himself with stamping his own device upon the coin; he had not tried to change its metal.  Drake tossed the paper on one side.  ’The man goes vitriol-throwing with vinegar,’ he said.

Conway picked up the Meteor.

‘You are a captain, aren’t you?’ he asked.  ’The omission of the title presumes you a criminal.’

‘I don’t object to the omission,’ replied Drake.  ’I suppose the title belongs to me by right.  But, after all, a captain in Matanga!  There are more honourable titles.’

Mallinson looked at him suddenly, as though some fresh idea had shot into his brain.

‘Well, will you come?’ he asked carelessly.

‘I hardly feel inclined to move.’

‘I didn’t imagine you would.’  There was evidence of distinct relief in the brisk tone of Mallinson’s voice.  He turned to Conway, ’We ought to be starting, I fancy.’

‘I shall stay with Drake,’ Conway answered, despondently to Drake’s thinking, and he lapsed into silence after Mallinson’s departure, broken by intervals of ineffective sarcasm concerning women, ineffectively accentuated by short jerks of laughter.  He roused himself in a while and carried Drake off to his club, where he found Hugh Fielding pulling his moustache over the Meteor.  He introduced Drake, and left them together.

‘I was reading a list of your sins,’ said Fielding, and he waved the newspaper.