arry, and gives
away all the Office patronage. I don't think he 's five feet five high,
but he 's made like a Hercules. Tom Sayers says Skeffy's deltoid--that's
the muscle up here--is finer than any in the ring, and he's such an
active devil. I must tell you of the day I held up the 'Times' for him
to jump through; but I see you are impatient for the serious things:
well, now for it.

"Sir Harry, cruel enough, in a grand sort of overbearing way, told me
my father was called Watty. I don't believe it; at least, the fellow who
took the liberty must have earned the right by a long apprenticeship."

"You are right there, Tony; there were not many would venture on it."

"Did any one ever call him Wat Tartar, mother?"

"If they had, they 'd have caught one, Tony, I promise you."

"I thought so. Well, he went on to say that he had nothing he could give
me. It was to the purport that I was fit for nothing, and I agreed with
him."

"That was not just prudent, Tony; the world is prone enough to disparage
without helping them to the road to it."

"Possibly; but he read me like a book, and said that I only came to him
because I was hopeless. He asked me if I knew a score of things he was
well aware that I must be ignorant of, and groaned every time I said
'No!' When he said, 'Go home and brush up your French and Italian,'
I felt as if he said, 'Look over your rent roll, and thin your young
timber.' He 's a humbug, mother."

"Oh, Tony, you must not say that."

"I will say it; he's a humbug, and so is the other."

"Who is the other you speak of?"

"Lord Ledgerton, a smartish old fellow, with a pair of gray eyes that
look through you, and a mouth that you can't guess whether he's going
to eat you up or to quiz you. It was he that said, 'Make Butler a
messenger.' They did n't like it. The Office fellows looked as sulky as
night; but they had to bow and snigger, and say, 'Certainly, my Lord;'
but I know what they intend, for all that. They mean to pluck me; that's
the way they 'll do it; for when I said I was nothing to boast of in
English, and something worse in French, they grinned and exchanged
smiles, as much as to say, 'There's a rasper he 'll never get over.'"

"And what is a messenger, Tony?"

"He's a fellow that carries the despatches over the whole world,--at
least, wherever there is civilization enough to have a Minister or an
Envoy. He starts off from Downing Street with half-a-dozen great bags
as tall as me,