ence, I sat down without reply. "This
bag is late, Mr. Paynter," said he, blandly, as he laid down his pen and
looked me in the face.

"Your Excellency will permit me, _in limine_, to observe that my name is
not Paynter."

"Possibly, sir," said he, haughtily; "but you are evidently before me
for the first time, or you would know that, like my great colleague and
friend, Prince Metternich, I have made it a rule through life never to
burden my memory with whatever can be spared it, and of these are the
patronymics of all subordinate people; for this reason, sir, and to this
end, every cook in my establishment answers to the name of Honore, my
valet is always Pierre, my coach-. man Jacob, my groom is Charles, and
all foreign messengers I call Paynter. The original of that appellation
is, I fancy, superannuated or dead, but he lives in some twenty
successors who carry canvas reticules as well as he."

"The method may be convenient, sir, but it is scarcely complimentary,"
said I, stiffly.

"Very convenient," said he, complacently. "All consuls I address as Mr.
Sloper. You can't fail to perceive how it saves time, and I rather think
that in the end they like it themselves. When did you leave town?"

"I left on Saturday last. I arrived at Dover by the express train, and
it was there that the incident befell me by which I have now the honor
to stand before your Excellency."

Instead of bestowing the slightest attention on this exordium of mine,
he had resumed his pen and was writing away glibly as before. "Nothing
new stirring, when you left?" said he, carelessly.

"Nothing, sir. But to resume my narrative of explanation--"

"Come to dinner, Paynter; we dine at six," said he, rising hastily; and,
opening a glass door into a conservatory, walked away, leaving me in
a mingled state of shame, anger, humiliation, and, I will state, of
ludicrous embarrassment, which I have no words to express.

"Dinner! No," exclaimed I, "if the alternative were a hard crust and a
glass of spring water I not if I were to fast till this time to-morrow!
Dine with a man who will not condescend to acknowledge even my identity,
who will not deign to call me by my name, but only consents to regard
me as a pebble on the seashore, a blade of grass in a wide meadow! Dine
with him, to be addressed as Mr. Paynter, and to see Pierre, and
Jacob, and the rest of them looking on me as one of themselves! By what
prescriptive right does this man dare to in