'Oh;—a private letter!' said Mr Kissing, feeling strongly convinced there was a novel hidden there, but not daring to express his belief. 'I have been half the morning, Mr Eames, looking for this letter to the Admiralty, and you've put it under S!' A bystander listening to Mr Kissing's tone would have been led to believe that the whole Income-tax Office was jeopardised by the terrible iniquity thus disclosed.
'Somerset House,' pleaded Johnny.
'Psha;—Somerset House! Half the offices in London—'
'You'd better ask Mr Love,' said Eames. 'It's all done under his special instructions.' Mr Kissing looked at Mr Love; and Mr Love looked steadfastly at his desk. 'Mr Love knows all about the indexing,' continued Johnny. 'He's index master general to the department.'
'No, I'm not, Mr Eames,' said Mr Love, who rather liked John Eames, and hated Mr Kissing with his whole heart. 'But I believe the indexes, on the whole, are very well done in this room. Some people don't know how to find letters.'
'Mr Eames,' began Mr Kissing, still pointing with a finger of bitter reproach to the misused S, and beginning an oration which was intended for the benefit of the whole room, and for the annihilation of old Mr Love, 'if you have yet to learn that the word Admiralty begins with A and not with S, you have much to learn which should have been acquired before you first came into this office. Somerset House is not a department.' Then he turned round to the room at large, and repeated the last words, as though they might become very useful if taken well to heart—'Is not a department. The Treasury is a department; the Home Office is a department; the India Board is a department—'
'No, Mr Kissing, it isn't,' said a young clerk from the other end of the room.
'You know very well what I mean, sir. The India Office is a department.'
'There's no Board, sir.'
'Never mind; but how any gentleman who has been in the service three months,—not to say three years,—can suppose Somerset House to be a department, is beyond my comprehension. If you have been improperly instructed—'
'We shall know all about it another time,' said Eames. 'Mr Love will make a memorandum of it.'
'I shan't do anything of the kind,' said Mr Love.
'If you have been wrongly instructed—' Mr Kissing began again, stealing a glance at Mr Love as he did so; but at this moment the door was again opened, and a messenger summoned Johnny to the presence of the really great man. 'Mr Eames to wait upon Sir Raffle.' Upon hearing this Johnny immediately started, and left Mr Kissing and the big book in possession of his desk. How the battle was waged, and how it raged in the large room, we cannot stop to hear, as it is necessary that we should follow our hero into the presence of Sir Raffle Buffle.
'Ah, Eames,—yes,' said Sir Raffle, looking up from his desk when the young man entered; 'just wait half a minute, will you?' And the knight went to work at his papers, as though fearing that any delay in what he was doing might be very prejudicial to the nation at large. 'Ah, Eames,—well,—yes,' he said again, as he pushed away from him, almost with a jerk, the papers on which he had been writing. 'They tell me that you know the business of this office pretty well.'
'Some of it, sir,' said Eames.
'Well, yes; some of it. But you'll have to understand the whole of it if you come to me. And you must be very sharp about it too. You know that FitzHoward is leaving me?'
'I have heard of it, sir.'
'A very excellent young man, though perhaps not— But we won't mind that. The work is a little too much for him, and he's going back into the office. I believe Lord De Guest is a friend of yours; isn't he?'
'Yes; he is a friend of mine, certainly. He's been very kind to me.'
'Ah, well. I've known the earl for many years,—for very many years; and intimately at one time. Perhaps you may have heard him mention my name?'
'Yes, I have, Sir Raffle.'
'We were intimate once, but those things go off, you know. He's been the country mouse and I've been the town mouse. Ha, ha, ha! You may tell him that I say so. He won't mind that coming from me.'
'Oh, no; not at all,' said Eames.
'Mind you tell him when you see him. The earl is a man for whom I've
