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you think if I had any money I'd be living in a dump like the Château Blissac? No, sir. I'd be back in Glendale, where men are men.'
    Mr Slattery gave a little start.
    'Do you live at the Chatty-o Blissac?'
    'Yessir. Right there at the Château Blissac.'
    Mr Slattery chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. The discovery that this little man was residing, even if only in the modest capacity of a bird in a gilded cage, at the house which had been so much in his day-dreams, had stirred him a good deal. He could not have said just what he hoped would develop from their acquaintanceship, but he certainly felt that it was worth taking trouble to conciliate him. He cocked an eye politely.
    'Do you now?' he said. 'Well, well!'
    'Yessir. Mrs Gedge insisted on renting it, and I wouldn't give you a nickel for the place. It makes me sick. And that's not the half of it.'
    'No?'
    'No, sir. Do you know what?'
    'What?'
    'When she told me this morning, you could have knocked me down with a feather. What do you think?'
    'What?'
    'You'll never guess.'
    'What?'
    'Do you know what she told me this morning?'
    'How the hell should I know what she told you this morning?' said Mr Slattery, momentary irritation causing him to deviate from his policy of courtliness. 'Do you think I was hiding under the bed?'
    'She told me I've got to be American Ambassador to France.'
    Mr Slattery considered this.
    'You won't like that.'
    'I know darned well I won't like it. Ambassadors have to wear uniforms and knickerbockers... the sissies.'
    And cocked hats.'
    'Cocked hats?'
    'Sure. I've seen them in the news-reels. And they get kissed all the time by Frenchmen.'
    It had been Mr Gedge's belief until he heard these words that he had explored to their ultimate depths the drawbacks to representing his country in an ambassadorial capacity. He now perceived that the last and most hideous of them had escaped his notice. He sat for a moment paralysed. Then words poured from him in a frenzied tumult.
    'I won't do it! I just won't do it. No, sir! I'll get me a little capital, enough to start again on, and then I'll defy her. Yessir, that's what I'll do – defy her. I'm very fond of my dear wife, but I'll walk right up to her and defy her. Here's what I'll say: "Look-ut!" I'll say, "I've got enough to start again on now, and I'm independent, see? And I don't intend to be Ambassador to France," I'll say. "The quicker you forget that Ambassador stuff, the better, because it's all wet. And what's more, talking of France," I'll say, "I'm getting out of it on the next boat and going back to California, that's what I'm doing. If you want to stick on in France, stick on," I'll say. "But I'm going right back to Glendale. Yessir!"'
    Mr Slattery, though not an unkindly man, was practical. It is his type that discourages dreamers.
    'Where,' he asked, 'are you going to get your capital?'
    In the exhilaration of building air-castles Mr Gedge had overlooked this point. The fire faded from his eye.
    'You couldn't lend me a little, could you?'
    Mr Slattery said he could not.
    'I shouldn't want more than ten thousand. If I could lay my hands on ten thousand, I could get back everything I lost.'
    Mr Slattery said that if he ever saw ten thousand dollars he would take each individual bill singly and kiss it.
    A mad rebellion at Fate's unkindness seemed to sting Mr Gedge.
    'It's so unjust!'
    'What's unjust?'
    'Why, well, look. Do you know what?'
    Mr Slattery begged his companion not to keep asking him if he knew what.
    'Well, do you know what? When I married Mrs Gedge I was a rich man....'
    'You told me that.'
    'Yes, but I didn't tell you this. I covered that woman with jewels. Well, when I say covered her... Anyway, I gave her a darned lot. Sixty thousand dollars' worth, at least.'
    Mr Slattery was impressed. Sixty grand, he agreed, was pretty good gravy.
    'Think what those sixty thousand fish would mean to me now! Think what I could do with them!'
    'Ah.'
    'I tell you,' said Mr Gedge, trembling