he means to be here himself, I hope I may be--blessed." On that
especial morning it was twelve before Sir Raffle made his appearance,
and Johnny avenged himself,--I regret to have to tell it,--by a fib.
That Sir Raffle fibbed first, was no valid excuse whatever for Eames.

"I've been at it ever since six o'clock," said Sir Raffle.

"At what?" said Johnny.

"Work, to be sure;--and very hard work too. I believe the Chancellor
of the Exchequer thinks that he can call upon me to any extent that
he pleases;--just any extent that he pleases. He doesn't give me
credit for a desire to have a single hour to myself."

"What would he do, Sir Raffle, if you were to get ill, or wear
yourself out?"

"He knows I'm not one of the wearing-out sort. You got my note last
night?"

"Yes; I got your note."

"I'm sorry that I troubled you; but I couldn't help it. I didn't
expect to get a box full of papers at eleven o'clock last night."

"You didn't put me out, Sir Raffle; I happened to have business of my
own which prevented the possibility of my being here early."

This was the way in which John Eames avenged himself. Sir Raffle
turned his face upon his private secretary, and his face was very
black. Johnny bore the gaze without dropping an eyelid. "I'm not
going to stand it, and he may as well know that at once," Johnny said
to one of his friends in the office afterwards. "If he ever wants
anything really done, I'll do it;--though it should take me twelve
hours at a stretch. But I'm not going to pretend to believe all the
lies he tells me about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If that
is to be part of the private secretary's business, he had better
get somebody else." But now Sir Raffle was very angry, and his
countenance was full of wrath as he looked down upon his subordinate
minister. "If I had come here, Mr. Eames, and had found you absent, I
should have been very much annoyed, very much annoyed indeed, after
having written as I did."

"You would have found me absent at the hour you named. As I wasn't
here then, I think it's only fair to say so."

"I'm afraid you begrudge your time to the service, Mr. Eames."

"I do begrudge it when the service doesn't want it."

"At your age, Mr. Eames, that's not for you to judge. If I had acted
in that way when I was young I should never have filled the position
I now hold. I always remembered in those days that as I was the hand
and not the head, I was bound to hold myself in readin