Sir John did not move.
"I don't think I am called upon to rise," he murmured to Mrs.Gould.
"That sort of thing speaks for itself." But Don Jose Avellanos came to the rescue with a short oration, in which he alluded pointedly to England's goodwill towards Costaguana--"a goodwill," he continued, significantly, "of which I, having been in my time accredited to the Court of St.James, am able to speak with some knowledge." Only then Sir John thought fit to respond, which he did gracefully in bad French, punctuated by bursts of applause and the "Hear! Hears!" of Captain Mitchell, who was able to understand a word now and then.
Directly he had done, the financier of railways turned to Mrs.Gould-- "You were good enough to say that you intended to ask me for something," he reminded her, gallantly.

"What is it?
Be assured that any request from you would be considered in the light of a favour to myself." She thanked him by a gracious smile.

Everybody was rising from the table.
"Let us go on deck," she proposed, "where I'll be able to point out to you the very object of my request." An enormous national flag of Costaguana, diagonal red and yellow, with two green palm trees in the middle, floated lazily at the mainmast head of the Juno.

A multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands at the water's edge in honour of the President kept up a mysterious crepitating noise half round the harbour.

Now and then a lot of rockets, swishing upwards invisibly, detonated overhead with only a puff of smoke in the bright sky.