'
'Home, sir?'
'Home--well--yes, I suppose it's late. You look sleepy. I should have
been glad to finish the chapter on Beetroot Sugar to-night--but it may
stand over for the morning. Be sure you're early.'
'Yes, sir,' the clerk responded with a faint sigh.
He was paid handsomely for late hours, liberally rewarded for his
shorthand services; and yet he wished the great Fitzpatrick had not been
quite so industrious.
'Now, my dear Hartfield, what can I do for you?' asked Fitzpatrick, when
the clerk had gone. 'I can see by your face that you've something
serious in hand. Can I help you?'
'You can, I believe, in a very material way. You were five-and-twenty
years in Spanish America?'
'Rather more than less.'
'Here, there, and everywhere?'
'Yes; there is _not_ a city in South America that I have not lived
in--for something between a day and a year.'
'You know something about most men of any mark in that part of the
world, I conclude?'
'It was my business to know men of all kinds. I had my mission from the
Spanish Government.
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