CHAPTER XXV
A S he had expected, the Foreign Office beamed on him. It was immensely gratified that a man of his statesmanlike qualities should have differentiated so acutely between the values of the two spheres of his suggested activities. In bureaucratic satisfaction it rubbed its hands at a departmental score. Mr. Baltazar had only to name his terms and conditions. With the Foreign Office it was all plain sailing. Nay, more. If it could have prevailed with an ultra-conservative Admiralty, it would have sent him out to China in the newest, fastest and most mysterious battle-cruiser. But in Government circles outside the Foreign Office there was the devil to pay. Consternation also reigned in the office of The New Universe. For two or three weeks Baltazar had a grim time.
The first an
