The Dictator | Page 5

show yourself as much as possible, to make as many friends as you can?
There's a good deal to be done in that way, and nothing much else to do
for the present. Really I think it would be better to accept some of them.
Several are from influential political men.'
'Do you think these influential political men would help me?' the
Dictator asked, good-humouredly cynical. 'Did they help Kossuth? Did
they help Garibaldi? What I want are war-ships, soldiers, a big loan, not
the agreeable conversation of amiable politicians.'
'Nevertheless----' Hamilton began to protest.
His chief cut him short. 'Do as you please in the matter, my dear boy,'
he said. 'It can't do any harm, anyhow. Accept all you think it best to
accept; decline the others. I leave myself confidently in your hands.'
'What are you going to do this morning?' Hamilton inquired. 'There are
one or two people we ought to think of seeing at once. We mustn't let
the grass grow under our feet for one moment.'
'My dear boy,' said Ericson good-humouredly, 'the grass shall grow
under my feet to-day, so far as all that is concerned. I haven't been in
London for ten years, and I have something to do before I do anything
else. To-morrow you may do as you please with me. But if you insist
upon devoting this day to the cause----'
'Of course I do,' said Hamilton.

'Then I graciously permit you to work at it all day, while I go off and
amuse myself in a way of my own. You might, if you can spare the
time, make a call at the Foreign Office and say I should be glad to wait
on Sir Rupert Langley there, any day and hour that suit him--we must
smooth down the dignity of these Foreign Secretaries, I suppose?'
'Oh, of course,' Hamilton said, peremptorily. Hamilton took most things
gravely; the Dictator usually did not. Hamilton seemed a little put out
because his chief should have even indirectly suggested the possibility
of his not waiting on Sir Rupert Langley at the Foreign Office.
'All right, boy; it shall be done. And look here, Hamilton, as we are
going to do the right thing, why should you not leave cards for me and
for yourself at Sir Rupert Langley's house? You might see the
daughter.'
'Oh, she never heard of me,' Hamilton said hastily.
'The daughter of a Foreign Secretary?'
'Anyhow, of course I'll call if you wish it, Excellency.'
'Good boy! And do you know I have taken a fancy that I should like to
see this soldier of fortune, Captain----'
'Sarrasin?'
'Sarrasin--yes. Will you drop him a line and suggest an
interview--pretty soon? You know all about my times and
engagements.'
'Certainly, your Excellency,' Hamilton replied, with almost military
formality and precision; and the Dictator departed.
CHAPTER III
AT THE GARDEN GATE

Londoners are so habituated to hear London abused as an ugly city that
they are disposed too often to accept the accusation humbly. Yet the
accusation is singularly unjust. If much of London is extremely
unlovely, much might fairly be called beautiful. The new Chelsea that
has arisen on the ashes of the old might well arouse the admiration
even of the most exasperated foreigner. There are recently created
regions in that great tract of the earth's surface known as South
Kensington which in their quaintness of architectural form and
braveness of red brick can defy the gloom of a civic March or
November. Old London is disappearing day by day, but bits of it
remain, bits dear to those familiar with them, bits worth the enterprise
of the adventurous, which call for frank admiration and frank praise
even of people who hated London as fully as Heinrich Heine did. But
of all parts of the great capital none perhaps deserve so fully the title to
be called beautiful as some portions of Hampstead Heath.
Some such reflections floated lightly through the mind of a man who
stood, on this May afternoon, on a high point of Hampstead Hill. He
had climbed thither from a certain point just beyond the Regent's Park,
to which he had driven from Knightsbridge. From that point out the
way was a familiar way to him, and he enjoyed walking along it and
noting old spots and the changes that time had wrought. Now, having
reached the highest point of the ascent, he paused, standing on the grass
of the heath, and turning round, with his back to the country, looked
down upon the town.
There is no better place from which to survey London. To impress a
stranger with any sense of the charm of London as a whole, let him be
taken to that vantage-ground and bidden to gaze. The great city seemed