ery petty rule and miserable criticism
that applies to a clerk in Somerset House. They exact from us the
services of a giant, and then would reduce us to their own dwarfish
standard whenever there is question of a moral estimate."

He walked to and fro as he spoke, his excitement increasing at every
word, the veins in his forehead swelling and the angles of his mouth
twitching with a spasmodic motion. "There, sir," cried he, with a wave
of his hand; "let there be no more mention of this man. I shall want to
see a draft of the educational project, as soon as it is completed. That
will do;" and with this he dismissed him.

No sooner was the door closed on his departure, than Lord Culduflf
poured some scented water into a small silver ewer, and proceeded to
bathe his eyes and temples, and then, sitting down before a little
mirror, he smoothed his eyebrows, and patiently disposed the straggling
hairs into line. "Who 's there? come in," cried he, impatiently, as a
tap was heard at the door, and Mr. Cutbill entered, with the bold and
assured look of a man determined on an insolence.

"So, my Lord, your servants have got orders not to admit me,--the door
is to be shut against me!" said he, walking boldly forward and staring
fiercely at the other's face.

"Quite true, however you came to know it," said Culduflf, with a
smile of the easiest, pleasantest expression imaginable. "I told Temple
Bramleigh this morning to give the orders you speak of. I said it in
these words: Mr. Cutbill got in here a couple of days ago, when I was
in the middle of a despatch, and we got talking of this, that, and
t'other, and the end was, I never could take up the clew of what I had
been writing. A bore interrupts but does not distract you: a clever
man is sure, by his suggestiveness, to lead you away to other realms
of thought: and so I said, a strict quarantine against two people--I'll
neither see Antonelli nor Cutbill."

It was a bold shot, and few men would have had courage for such
effrontery; but Lord Culduff could do these things with an air of such
seeming candor and naturalness, nothing less than a police-agent could
have questioned its sincerity. Had a man of his own rank in life "tried
it on" in this fashion, Cutbill would have detected the impudent fraud
at once. It was the superb dignity, the consummate courtesy of this
noble Viscount, aided by every appliance of taste and luxury around him,
that assured success here.

"Take that