Kindling by Nevil Shute

Author:Nevil Shute [Shute, Nevil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-47417-9
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

THE Consul tapped his pince-nez nervously upon the desk. “It was good of you to come down, Mr. Warren,” he began. “The Ambassador wanted me to have a word with you.”

“Oh, yes?”

The Consul coughed. “The Ambassador feels very strongly that it is the duty of the English community in Visgrad to set an example of probity and correct behaviour in these Balkan states.” He coughed again.… “After all, you will understand better than most of us that it is on those principles that our commercial prosperity is founded.”

“Hadn’t you better tell me what you’re driving at?”

“It’s about those parties of yours at this night-club the Gonea, Mr. Warren. The Ambassador was not at all pleased when he heard about them.”

Warren nodded slowly. “I’m exceedingly sorry if they don’t fit in with his ideas,” he said. “But I really don’t see what it’s got to do with him.”

The Consul raised his eyebrows. “Is it correct that on successive evenings you have won, and lost, sums up to two thousand pounds a night?”

“That is so.”

“Well, Mr. Warren—as of course you know—the Ambassador is the head of the British community in this country. When a man as well recommended as you are arrives in Visgrad and begins to gamble on that scale, and—if I may say so—in the most dubious company, it naturally engages the attention of the Embassy. And I may tell you frankly, Mr. Warren, that the Embassy don’t like it.”

There was a silence in the room. “You mean,” said Warren, “that unless I mend my ways I shall no longer be persona grata at the Embassy.”

“You put it very bluntly. But—well, that is the gist of it.”

“That means, the British Government would withdraw their support. They’d tell the Laevatian Government that they’d be wiser not to deal with me?”

“I cannot recall such a case. But in the extreme, the Ambassador might decide to take that action.”

Warren smiled. “Well,” he said, “you can tell the Ambassador that I’m going to mend my ways. I don’t think it will be necessary for me to gamble on that scale again—that’s served its turn. But I tell you, I’m not going home without my order. And you know how business is done out here as well as I do.”

The Consul sighed. “I know—and that’s what makes it difficult. However, I’ll tell the Ambassador what you have said, and I am sure he will be satisfied.”

For three days Warren worked for eighteen hours a day. He engaged a sitting-room as an office and obtained the services of a stenographer; he spent the business hours in conferences, principally at the Treasury. The afternoons and evenings were spent in getting out new drafts for the next day. Before going to bed he dropped in for an hour at the Gonea with Pepita; that was his sole diversion.

At the end of that time he had reached the point where he could go no further without consultation with the market in London.

He explained this to M. Potiscu at the Treasury.

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