nd how a misconception might be
ingeniously widened into a grave blunder; and by what means such incidents
should be properly commented on by the local papers, and unfavourable
comparisons drawn between the author of these measures and 'the great and
enlightened statesman' who had so lately left them.

In a word, Atlee saw that he was to personate the character of a most
unsuspecting, confiding young gentleman, who possessed a certain natural
aptitude for affairs of importance, and that amount of discretion such
as suited him to be employed confidentially; and to perform this part he
addressed himself.

The Pasha liked him so much that he invited him to be his guest while he
remained at Constantinople, and soon satisfied that he was a guileless
youth fresh to the world and its ways, he talked very freely before him,
and affecting to discuss mere possibilities, actually sketched events and
consequences which Atlee shrewdly guessed to be all within the range of
casualties.

Lord Danesbury's post at Constantinople had not been filled up, except by
the appointment of a Charge-d'Affaires; it being one of the approved modes
of snubbing a government to accredit a person of inferior rank to its
court. Lord Danesbury detested this man with a hate that only official
life comprehends, the mingled rancour, jealousy, and malice suggested by a
successor, being a combination only known to men who serve their country.

'Find out what Brumsey is doing; he is said to be doing wrong. He knows
nothing of Turkey. Learn his blunders, and let me know them.'

This was the easiest of all Atlee's missions, for Brumsey was the weakest
and most transparent of all imbecile Whigs. A junior diplomatist of small
faculties and great ambitions, he wanted to do something, not being clear
as to what, which should startle his chiefs, and make 'the Office' exclaim:
'See what Sam Brumsey has been doing! Hasn't Brumsey hit the nail on the
head! Brumsey's last despatch is the finest state-paper since the days of
Canning!' Now no one knew the short range of this man's intellectual
tether better than Lord Danesbury--since Brumsey had been his own private
secretary once, and the two men hated each other as only a haughty superior
and a craven dependant know how to hate.

The old ambassador was right. Russian craft had dug many a pitfall for the
English diplomatist, and Brumsey had fallen into every one of them. Acting
on secret information--all ingeniously p