Is that understood ?' The pressman agreed, and made a note of the proviso.
'There is another point.

I have seen nothing of the paper necessarily for the last few weeks.

The _Meteor_ has, I suppose, continued its--crusade, shall we call it ?--but on what lines exactly I am, of course, ignorant.
It will be better, consequently, that you should put questions and I answer them, upon this condition, however,--that all reference is omitted to any point on which I am unwilling to speak.' The reporter demurred, but, seeing that Drake was obdurate, he was compelled to give way.
'The entire responsibility of the expedition rests with me,' Drake explained, 'but there were others concerned in it.

You might trench upon private matters which only affect them.' He watched the questions with the vigilance of a counsel on behalf of a client undergoing cross-examination, but they were directed solely to the elucidation of the disputed point whether Drake had or had not, while a captain in the service of the Matanga Republic, attacked a settlement of Arab slave-dealers within the zone of a British Protectorate.

The editor of the _Meteor_ believed that he had, and strenuously believed it--in the interests of his shareholders.