Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

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"I think I'll take a chance on him," said the Secretary. "How do you gentlemen vote?"

"As I said before, on the whole I think he's a very promising candidate," said Dannenberg.

"I'd like to have him," said Keller. "I think he could be shaped and molded."

"I've got reservations about giving him a post in the Orient at this time, but he might be all right for Europe," said Richards.

"He is a very personable young man," Matson said. "That I'll admit. And as he grows older he'll no doubt have some good, hard, common sense knocked into him. But right now he should be nursed along. There's a post open in Tananarive, Madagascar, that we always have trouble filling. I think he'd be a good man for there."

"No," said the Secretary. "If he asks for a Southern or Central European job I think he should get it. That's where he belongs."

So that settled it.

As he rose from the table the Secretary said, as if it were an afterthought and of little consequence, "Mr. Matson, would you mind sending me the cables on the Bulgarian fishing boats?"