THE wheel had begun to turn. Nothing could stop it now. Next morning came a fresh-looking elderly gentleman in grey, who announced himself as ‘of the Colonial Office.’ He looked about him as if he meant to buy the place; but modestly, as if for someone else. Mr. Cato received him in the drawing-room. He hoped the Prince was well. The Colonial Office had heard of the Prince’s improving fortunes. His business concerned the Prince, but it could most conveniently be broached to Mr. Cato. He would see the Prince afterwards.
It had probably struck Mr. Cato that the time had now arrived for the Prince to set up a separate establishment. The Colonial Office, which was ultimately responsible for him, felt that Mr. Cato’s kindness must not be trespassed on. He must not be allowed to monopolise the Prince.
Mr. Cato had probably noticed that native potentates always had, what you might call, for want of a better word, ‘keepers’ attached to their persons while they were in England. The actual title varied. As a rule it was some tall muscular military man who was said to be ‘in attendance on His Majesty the So-and-so.’ It was this functionary’s duty to keep him generally out of mischief; for these Oriental fellows would play the very deuce if left alone. Well, as far as Prince Dwala was concerned, the Colonial Office had decided that a Private Secretary would meet the case, and they had in fact selected the man.
‘Who is it?’ asked Mr. Cato, repressing a pang of jealousy.
‘One of the Huxtables—John Huxtable, a son of the Bishop.’
This again smelt of large success. Mr. Cato knew nothing of this particular John; but he was a Huxtable, and Huxtables are, like Napoleon, not men but institutions. Nature has such caprices. Out of many million wild rough briars, one rougher and crabbeder than all the rest is chosen by her for a fathering stock; whatever is grafted on it thrives. Another is richer, larger, better-flowered, the pride of the field—it is wise, courteous, a soldier, a leader of men; it is made a Duke; it is grafted with the delicatest buds of Paestum. But the bloom is frail and mean; shelter and fine feeding avail not, it has a good place in the garden, but it is fragrant only in its name. The Huxtables came of a rough and crabbed stock. Their great-grandfather was somebody’s gamekeeper. His sons throve in business. His grandsons were great men—soldiers, lawyers, priests. His great-grandsons, an innumerable rising generation, were destined for greater greatness. It had become an English custom to see large futures before them. They were big and bony, they played at Lord’s, they abounded in clubs and country houses; their handsome, strong-toothed sisters married well, breeding powerful broad-browed babies that frowned and pinched.
This particular Huxtable had tutored a Prince of the blood. He had been secretary to a philanthropic commission; he would be a Cabinet Minister, a Viceroy—anything he pleased. For the present he would be private secretary to Dwala: he would manage him, regulate him, assert him, protect him, establish him, marry him perhaps, and pass on to another broad stage in the regal staircase of his career.
As for the mines, the gentleman in grey had no advice to offer. It was a private affair of Prince Dwala’s; no concern of the Colonial Office. Why not consult some big financier? Baron Blumenstrauss, for instance.
Mr. Cato made no reply.
‘Well, after all,’ the grey gentleman concluded, ‘it had better be left to Mr. Huxtable.’