The question before my mind is as to whether you shall take this packet with you, or not.

What do you say, Mr.Mallock ?" All the while he had been speaking, I had been in a torment of misery.
As yet I had done little or nothing for His Majesty, after all my commissioning from Rome; and now that the first piece of work was on hand, it was doubtful whether I had not forfeited it by my clumsiness.
For the moment I forgot what I had come for.

I was all set on acquitting myself well.

I was but twenty-one years old! "Sir," I cried, "if your Majesty will entrust that to me, you shall never repent it." He smiled; but his face went back again to its heaviness.

"It is a very difficult commission," he said.