Page:Pleased to Meet You (1927).pdf/56

 play our cards carefully, you shall go down in history as the man who put Illyria on the map."

"Oh, I know he will," cried Nyla, enchanted. "Daddy's wonderful, Herr Cointreau, and if only that awful American debt can be paid"

"Don't you worry a bit about the debt. That'll work out all right.—Perhaps I can help a bit there: I visited in America once, I know how to handle them. Now the first thing is to make sure that all the more intimate matters are comfortable. Everything quite O.K.?"

There was something infectiously reassuring in the special agent's clear jovial gaze, and Herr Guadeloupe, blowing a cloud of comforting tobacco smoke, began to feel that there might be some fun in being President after all.

"Well," he said cautiously, "do you suppose there would be unfortunate repercussions at Geneva if I did not dress for dinner every evening? As you know, I am a plain man, Herr Cointreau, and too much formality"

"Quite right, quite right," said Cointreau.