the vessel
must be detained some days at Syra to refit, Atlee was scarcely sorry that
necessity gave him an opportunity to visit Athens.

A little about Ulysses and a good deal about Lord Byron, a smattering of
Grote, and a more perfect memory of About, were, as he owned to himself,
all his Greece; but he could answer for what three days in the country
would do for him, particularly with that spirit of candid inquiry he could
now bring to his task, and the genuine fairness with which he desired to
judge the people.

'The two years' resident' in Athens must doubtless often have dined with
his Minister, and so Atlee sent his card to the Legation.

Mr. Brammell, our 'present Minister at Athens,' as the _Times_ continued
to designate him, as though to imply that the appointment might not be
permanent, was an excellent man, of that stamp of which diplomacy has
more--who consider that the Court to which they are accredited concentrates
for the time the political interests of the globe. That any one in Europe
thought, read, spoke, or listened to anything but what was then happening
in Greece, Mr. Brammell could not believe. That France or Prussia, Spain
or Italy, could divide attention with this small kingdom; that the
great political minds of the Continent were not more eager to know what
Comoundouros thought and Bulgaris required, than all about Bismarck and
Gortschakoff, he could not be brought to conceive; and in consequence of
these convictions, he was an admirable Minister, and fully represented all
the interests of his country.

As that admirable public instructor, the _Levant Herald_, had frequently
mentioned Atlee's name, now as the guest of Kulbash Pasha, now as having
attended some public ceremony with other persons of importance, and once
as 'our distinguished countryman, whose wise suggestions and acute
observations have been duly accepted by the imperial cabinet,' Brammell
at once knew that this distinguished countryman should be entertained at
dinner, and he sent him an invitation. That habit--so popular of late
years--to send out some man from England to do something at a foreign Court
that the British ambassador or Minister there either has not done, or
cannot do, possibly ought never to do, had invested Atlee in Brammell's
eyes with the character of one of those semi-accredited inscrutable people
whose function it would seem to be to make us out the most meddlesome
people in Europe.

Of course Brammell w