over a new leaf?"

"He'll never be the man that Perkins expects; but he's doing his level
best, and--is rising in the office. Perkins swears by him, and that's
made a man of the fellow.

"He's paid up the cash now, but--he can never pay up the
kindness--confound those wax matches, they never strike--he told his
mother last summer the whole story.

"She wrote to Perkins--of course I don't know what was in the
letter--but Perkins had the fellow into his room. 'You ought to have
regarded our transaction as confidential. I am grieved you mentioned
my name;' and then as I--I mean, as the fellow--was going out, 'I'll
keep that letter beside my commission,' said Perkins.

"If Perkins dies"--young men don't do that kind of thing, or else one
would have thought--"it'll be--a beastly shame," which was a terrible
collapse, and Mr. Geoffrey Lighthead of the Schedule Department left
the house without further remark or even shaking hands.

That was Wednesday, and on Friday morning he appeared, flourishing a
large blue envelope, sealed with an imposing device, marked "On Her
Majesty's Service," and addressed to

"Frederick Augustus Perkins, Esq.,
First Class Clerk in the Schedule Department,
Somerset House,
London,"

an envelope any man might be proud to receive, and try to live up to
for a week.

"Rodway has retired," he shouted, "and we can't be sure in the office,
but the betting is four to one--I'm ten myself--that the Board has
appointed Perkins Chief Clerk;" and Lighthead did some steps of a
triumphal character.

"The Secretary appeared this morning after the Board had met. 'There's
a letter their Honors wish taken at once to Mr. Perkins. Can any of
you deliver it at his residence?' Then the other men looked at me,
because--well, Perkins has been friendly with me; and that hansom came
very creditably indeed.

"Very low, eh? Doctors afraid not last over the night--that's hard
lines--but I say, they did not reckon on this letter. Could not you
read it to him? You see this was his one ambition. He could never be
Secretary, not able enough, but he was made for Chief Clerk. Now he's
got it, or I would not have been sent out skimming with this letter.
Read it to him, and the dear old chap will be on his legs in a week."

It seemed good advice; and this was what I read, while Perkins lay
very still and did his best to breathe:--

"DEAR MR. PERKINS:

"I have the pleasure to inform you that the Board h