pon his face and to cause him to swear a little more. Just then a tap
came at the door, and his clerk entered.

"Anything by the post that wants seeing to, sir?"

"Anything? I should think so. Just look at all this, Morkel," pointing
to the heap of stuff upon the table.

Morkel did look at it--looked somewhat blue, moreover. He was fond of
sport and had intended to ask for a day or two's leave to join a buck
hunt on one of the farms, and was fully capable of grasping the amount
of work all that confounded correspondence was going to entail. He was
a well-set-up, good-looking young fellow of five and twenty, very proud
of his fair proportions and waxed moustache and somewhat dandified
attire; for there were three or four passable-looking girls in
Schalkburg, and the Civil Commissioner's clerk was Somebody in the
place.

"One would think, at such a time as this, Government would have plenty
to do without off-loading all these insane circulars upon us," went on
his chief, irritably. "It isn't as if the things they want to know were
of any practical use--they might as well move for a return of the number
of buttons on every prisoner's breeches over at the gaol as some of the
things they do ask, but we've got to humour them. By the way, though,
there's one thing they want to know that has a practical side, and that
ought to be looked after by a special department manufactured for this
emergency. _We_ have quite enough to do without going on the stump, so
to say. Look at this."

He handed the letter marked "Confidential" to his subordinate. The
latter read it through carefully, and as he did so he saw light. He
thought he was going to get his shoot after all, and a good deal more of
it than he had at first hoped for.

"The thing is so unreasonable," went on Mr Jelf. "Every mortal fad
sprung on the House by some tin-pot country member, some retired
canteen-keeper and proportionately consequential, is off-loaded on the
Civil Commissioner. The Civil Commissioner is requested to do this, and
the Civil Commissioner is desired to supply information upon that--as if
we hadn't quite enough to do with our financial and judicial duties.
Why the deuce can't Government have its own Secret Service department as
Oom Paul is supposed to have?"

Morkel listened sympathetically, as he always did when his chief
indulged in a grumble. The two were on very good terms. Jelf had a
liking for his subordinate, who officially w