For three hours he had been cabling to Washington and to the British consul at New York for confirmation of the news about Lord Rawlins, but beyond the bare fact that the British Ambassador had gone to Ossian the day before, no tidings of him were obtainable. He had disappeared from the sight of the Foreign Office as completely as if the rail split by Abe Lincoln had borne him off the planet, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs was in despair.
And where was Lord Rawlins? He was on the golf links at Ossian, playing the game of his life. While the President of the University was waiting for his distinguished guest to appear at breakfast, his secretary had handed him "The Orbit." A thousand copies had been rushed into town by the early train; every student had seen one; and four reporters were already in the front hall to interview his lordship. In the face of this annoyance, the result, no doubt, of the silliness of some new correspondent, Tommy exhibited that astuteness in which Ossian found a perpetual delight. He invited the reporters to come again in an hour, got "The Orbit" out of sight, and told his best stories at the breakfast table until the chapel bell had long stopped ringing for morning prayers. Then he looked at his watch, declared it was so late that he would abandon his intention of taking his guest to morning chapel—did he not know that an ecstatic crowd of collegians were awaiting the arrival of the British envoy!—and proposed that instead of looking over the university buildings they spend the morning on the links. Lord Rawlins was a famous player, as everybody knew, and Tommy's son was then the holder of the intercollegiate championship. To the links the party drove then, by a circuitous road, the wise Tommy leaving no hint of their destination. Hour after hour, through that long forenoon, reporters and callers and telegrams and cablegrams accumulated in the President's mansion, while Lord Rawlins, in total ignorance of any international excitement, went over the eighteen-hole course like a boy of twenty, leading the champion by two points all the way.
At lunch time, and not before, he was told in Tommy's inimitable style of the newspaper joke that had been practiced upon the public at his expense. His lordship discreetly chose to consider it a deliciously characteristic example of American humor. He even smiled at the cablegrams which had been forwarded to him from Washington, though his smile by this time was decidedly a diplomatic one. Yet he sent a semi-jocular despatch to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and then devoted himself to the excellent luncheon, which was attended by the heads of the departments of the university, all eager to atone for the silly action of some unknown correspondent of a sensational newspaper. They laughed at all of Lord Rawlins's anecdotes, and talked solemnly to him about the brotherhood of educated men on both sides of the Atlantic.
And at that very instant, making due time allowance, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, white-faced and sick at heart, was trying to explain to an angry House that it had been impossible to communicate directly with the Ambassador to the United States, but that there was no reasonable doubt that the Ossian incident was largely exaggerated, and that, in any case, Her Majesty's government could be relied on to take such steps as were necessary to preserve the national honor. Friendship with the United States, it was needless to say, was too important to be lightly thrust aside, and so forth—and so forth.
It was useless. The House would have none of his phrases. Fifty members were on their feet at once, shouting and gesticulating at the Speaker. A London Socialist got the floor, as it chanced, and threatened the Government with a resolution of lack of confidence. It was an ill wind that would blow his coterie no good, and this was a whirlwind. For a moment it looked as if the Government was doomed, but the leader of the House got the floor by a trick, and in a masterly little speech moved a war budget of ten million pounds. To that appeal to British patriotism there could be but one response. The budget was rushed from reading to reading without a single dissenting voice; the alarming intelligence was flashed to every corner of the wide world; and just then the Minister of Foreign Affairs received his despatch from Lord Rawlins, written during lunch in the dining-room of the President's mansion at Ossian, United States of America. He consulted a moment with his colleagues, and then read it to the House. It is famous now, and, indeed, it is said that Lord Rawlins's present political station is due to the singular popularity which that despatch brought him. It ran: "Rumor of insult groundless. Newspaper joke. Entire courtesy everywhere. Have just beaten
