stride, and steeple-chasing through fact as though
it were only a gallop over grass land.

"Poor girl, well might you look confused
and overwhelmed at meeting me! well might the
flush of shame have spread over your neck and
shoulders, and well might you have hurried
away froum the presence of one who had known
you in the days of your happy innocence!" I'm
not sure that I didn't imagine I had been her
playfellow in childhood, and that we had been
brought, up from infancy together. My mind
then addressed itself to the practical question,
"What was to be done? Was I to turn my head
away while this iniquity was being enacted?
was I to go on my way forgetting the seeds of
that misery whose terrible fruits must one day
be a shame and an open ignominy? or was I to
arraign this man, great and exalted as he was,
and say to him, " Is it thus you represent before
the eyes of the foreigner the virtues of that
England we boast to be the model of all morality?
Is it thus you illustrate the habits of your order?
Do you dare to profane what, by the fiction of
diplomacy, is called the soil of your country, by
a life tliat you dare not pursue at home? The
Parliament shall hear of it, the Times shall
ring with it; that magnificent institution, the
common sense of England, long sick of what is
called secret diplomacy, shall learn at last to
what uses are applied the wiles and snares of
this deceitful craft, its extraordinary and its
private missions, its hurried messengers with their
bags of corruption—"

I was well " into my work," and going along
slappingly, when a very trim footman, in a
nankeen jacket, said:

"If you will come this way, sir, his excellency
will see you."

He led me through three or four salons
handsomely furnished and ornamented with pictures,
the most conspicuous of which, in each room, was
a life-sized portrait of the same gentleman,
though in a different costume— now in the Windsor
uniform, now as a Guardsman, and, lastly, in
the full dress of the diplomatic order. I had but
time to guess that this must be his excellency,
when the servant announced me and retired.

It is in deep shame that I own that the aspect
of the princely apartments, the silence, the
implied awe of the footman's subdued words as he
spoke, had so routed all my intentions about
calling his excellency to account, that I stood
in his presence timid and abashed. It is an
ignoble confession wrung out of the very heart
of rm snobbery, that no sooner did I find
myself before that thin, pale, grey-headed man,
who, in a light silk dressing-gown and slippers,
sat writing away, than I gave up my brief and
inwardly resigned my place as a counsel for
injured innocence.

He never raised his head as I entered, but
continued his occupation without noticing me,
muttering below his breath the words as they
fell from his pen. " Take a seat," said he curtly,
at last. Perceiving now that he was fully aware
of my presence, I sat down without reply. " This
bag is late, Mr. Paynter," said he, blandly,
as he laid down his pen and looked me in the
face.

" Your excellency will permit me, in limine,
to observe that my name is not Paynter."

"Possibly, sir," said he haughtily; "but
you are evidently before me for the first time,
or you would know that, like my great colleague
and friend, Prince Metternich, I nave made it a
rule through life never to burden my memory
with whatever can be spared it, and of these
are the patronymics of all subordinate people;
for this reason, sir, and to this end, every cook
in my establishment answers to the name of
Honoré, my valet is always Pierre, my coachman
Jacob, my groom is Charles, and all foreign
messengers I call Paynter. The original of that
appellation is, I fancy, superannuated or dead,
but he lives in some twenty successors who
carry canvas reticules as well as he."

"The method may be convenient, sir, but it
is scarcely complimentary," said I, stiffly.

"Very convenient," said he, complacently.
"All consuls I address as Mr. Sloper. You can't
fail to perceive how it saves time, and I rather
think that in the end they like it themselves.
When did you leave town?"

"I left on Saturday last. I arrived at Dover
by the express train, and it was there that the
incident befel me by which I have now the
honour to stand before your excellency."

Instead of bestowing the slightest attention
on this exordium of mine, he had resumed his
pen and was writing away glibly as before.

"Nothing new stirring, when you left?" said he,
carelessly.

"Nothing, sir. But to resume my narrative
of explanation—- "

"Come to dinner, Paynter; we dine at six,"
said he, rising hastily; and, opening a glass
door into a conservatory, walked away, leaving
me in a mingled state of shame, anger, humiliation,
and, I will state, of ludicrous embarrassment,
which I have no words to express.

"Dinner! No," exclaimed I, "if the
alternative were a hard crust and a glass of spring
water! not if I were to fast till this tune
tomorrow! Dine with a man who will not
condescend to acknowledge even my identity, who
will not deign to call me by my name, but only
consents to regard me as a pebble on the
sea-shore, a blade of grass in a wide meadow! Dine
with him, to be addressed as Mr. Paynter, and
to see Pierre, and Jacob, and the rest of them
looking on me as one of themselves! By what
prescriptive right does this man dare to insult
those who, for aught he can tell, are more than
his equals in ability? Does the accident—and
what other can it be than accident —of his station
confer this privilege? How would he look if
one were to retort with his own impertinence?
What, for instance, if I were to say, ' I always
call small diplomatists Bluebottles; you'll not
be offended if, just for memory's sake, I address
you as Bluebottle —Mr. Bluebottle, of course?'"

I was in ecstasies at this thought. It seemed
to vindicate all my insulted personality, all my
outraged and injured identity. "Yes," said I,