ger) at a signal from Mendoza, various messengers from the
outer apartments came in to transact business with him.

First it was Mr. Aminadab, who kissed his foot, and brought papers to
sign. "How is the house in Grosvenor Square, Aminadab; and is your
son tired of his yacht yet?" Mendoza asked. "That is my twenty-fourth
cashier," said Rafael to Codlingsby, when the obsequious clerk went
away. "He is fond of display, and all my people may have what money they
like."

Entered presently the Lord Bareacres, on the affair of his mortgage. The
Lord Bareacres, strutting into the apartment with a haughty air, shrank
back, nevertheless, with surprise on beholding the magnificence around
him. "Little Mordecai," said Rafael to a little orange-boy, who came in
at the heels of the noble, "take this gentleman out and let him have ten
thousand pounds. I can't do more for you, my lord, than this--I'm busy.
Good-by!" And Rafael waved his hand to the peer, and fell to smoking his
narghilly.

A man with a square face, cat-like eyes, and a yellow moustache, came
next. He had an hour-glass of a waist, and walked uneasily upon his
high-heeled boots. "Tell your master that he shall have two millions
more, but not another shilling," Rafael said. "That story about the
five-and-twenty millions of ready money at Cronstadt is all bosh. They
won't believe it in Europe. You understand me, Count Grogomoffski?"

"But his Imperial Majesty said four millions, and I shall get the knout
unless--"

"Go and speak to Mr. Shadrach, in room Z 94, the fourth court," said
Mendoza good-naturedly. "Leave me at peace, Count: don't you see it is
Friday, and almost sunset?" The Calmuck envoy retired cringing, and left
an odor of musk and candle-grease behind him.

An orange-man; an emissary from Lola Montes; a dealer in piping
bullfinches; and a Cardinal in disguise, with a proposal for a new loan
for the Pope, were heard by turns; and each, after a rapid colloquy in
his own language, was dismissed by Rafael.

"The queen must come back from Aranjuez, or that king must be disposed
of," Rafael exclaimed, as a yellow-faced amabassador from Spain, General
the Duke of Olla Podrida, left him. "Which shall it be, my Codlingsby?"
Codlingsby was about laughingly to answer--for indeed he was amazed to
find all the affairs of the world represented here, and Holywell Street
the centre of Europe--when three knocks of a peculiar nature were heard,
and Mendoza starting up,