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142 equal to the demand on my faculties, and pretty nearly the entire foreign correspondence of the house passed through my hands. I thus came, in due course of things, to be thoroughly trusted, and was recognised as a confidential person on probation for advancement. So matters pursued their even tenor; I, the while, mounting up in the world, and thinking of taking a house, perhaps a wife—of anything, indeed, rather than of travelling among Greeks and Mahometans.

One fine summer’s day—it rises before me now as though it were yesterday!—I had scarcely arrived at the office before I was summoned into Mr. Robson’s room. I felt sure that something uncommon must be in the wind to have brought our senior partner to the City so early. I knew indeed that things had not been going smoothly in the Levant. We had had of late an unusual influx of those vernacular documents of which I have already spoken, and our interpreter, John, had been in constant request. From him I received only occasional and partial intimations of what was going on within his field of observation, and felt that I had no right to make particular inquiries. My business was with Litti’s letters, and they appeared to me to be satisfactory. So, while I could take a wide guess at the whereabout of a likely hitch, I was all in the dark as to its precise nature.

I will spare the details of this, to me, most interesting interview. It will be enough to say that the House had been rendered uneasy by apparent discrepancies in Litti’s accounts, which had not been explained away on further inquiry. The imbroglio had been thickened by the papers which had been sent home, professedly for elucidation’s sake; and at the then present speaking there had cropped up to the surface disputes about insurance dues, customs, and, in one case, even about an entire cargo of valonea, which might, could, should, and certainly ought, to have found its way from Adaliah on the Karamanian coast to Vourlah, there to be transshipped for exportation. With our customs and dock system, such mystification could not take place, nor could there be room for such counter-statements. I know there was room for any amount of confusion under the old Turkish régime, and only hope that all I now hear of their amended ways may be true. I dare say, if the truth were known, they go on much in their old style. Well, our people felt themselves in a fix. Many a time had they accommodated themselves to circumstances, and taken for granted what they could not understand. But this was a question seriously affecting the trustworthiness of their agents. The matter must be looked to. Correspondence seemed only to render confusion more confounded. Somebody must intervene personally; and on the spot, bring individuals face to face, and make authoritative inquisition. That somebody was to be your humble servant.

“You are young,” said Mr. Robson, “but you possess our confidence. You are fully acquainted with Litti’s representations, and, with the help of a dragoman on the spot, will be able to communicate with all parties concerned. We shall send you with full powers to act on our behalf, and have every confidence that it is for our best interest so to do.”

This was all satisfactory. I was of course delighted to receive so convincing a proof of the esteem in which I was held by my superiors. But it was rather overwhelming, too. A fine barque, chartered by the firm, was about to sail for Smyrna in some ten days or a fortnight, and in her I was to have a berth. This gave me plenty of time to get ready all my traps. I wrote an affectionate farewell to my parents, said good-bye to my landlady, and at the appointed hour took a hackney coach down to the London Docks, and so I set off on my travels.

I pass by everything connected with the voyage, (though it was interesting enough to me at the time), and also with the mercantile part of the business. It will be enough for my purpose to have it understood that I conducted the required investigations satisfactorily, and that Signor Litti came out of the inquisition blameless in the main, and chargeable only with a slight lack of discretion. Moreover, I am proud to say, little or no loss accrued to the firm.

But it is quite necessary that I should explain that it became my duty in the course of these proceedings to visit Mitylene, and one or two other islands, and then go to a certain point of the Karamanian coast, much frequented as an entrepôt. This could only be done for the most part in country boats at a great cost of discomfort. I therefore congratulated myself on my good luck when I found that an opportunity was open to me of getting a passage as far as Rhodes in a comfortable and well-appointed schooner, commanded by a well-known skipper—known to myself, I mean, and that in a favourable light. He happened to have friends living out in my direction, so that my slight city knowledge of him had served as the introduction to something very like friendship between us, and I was truly glad to find that the passage was to be under his guardianship. The skippers in those days (perhaps it may be the same in these days) were rather an unpolished set, and many a queer story have I heard of their pranks when afloat. But Captain Quillet (we always scrupulously gave them their brevet titles) was a man of reason and moderation, who was never tempted by circumstances to forget himself. He behaved as well on board the Mary Jane as he did in Cornhill.

Indeed, circumstances were of a character, during that particular cruise, to keep him in check, had he been disposed to misbehave himself. I was not the only passenger on the occasion. I had not been on board ten minutes before I observed evidence of the presence amongst us of the great civilising element of society. Certainly I had been quite unaware that any such advantage had been included in my bargain. But under an awning on deck I espied a chair, and on that chair was a pretty little blue parasol, which might have come spick and span out of Regent Street, so neat did it look. Now Quillet was not likely to have been making purchases just there and then, so I guessed that the owner of the parasol must have brought it aboard herself, and be aboard; and I was delighted accordingly.