g, had it been possible, to have entered
into Phil's feelings on the occasion of his transacting this first piece
of financial business. Being a country-bred boy, he was as bashful
about it as if he had been only ten years old. He doubted, first,
whether the clerk would believe him in earnest when he should demand the
order. Then, when he received the form to fill up, he had considerable
hesitation lest he should fill in the blanks erroneously, and when the
clerk scanned the slip and frowned, he felt convinced that he had done
so.

"You've put only Mrs Maylands," said the clerk.

"_Only_ Mrs Maylands!" thought Phil; "does the man want me to add
`widow of the Reverend James Maylands, and mother of all the little
Maylands?'" but he only said, "Sure, sir, it's to her I want to send the
money."

"Put down her Christian name;" said the clerk; "order can't be drawn
without it."

Phil put down the required name, handed over the money, received back
the change, inserted the order into a previously prepared letter, posted
the same, and walked away from that office as tall as his friend George
Aspel--if not taller--in sensation.

Let us now follow our hero to the boy-messengers' room in the basement
of St. Martin's-le-Grand.

Entering one morning after the delivery of a telegram which had cost him
a pretty long walk, Phil proceeded to the boys' hall, and took his seat
at the end of the row of boys who were awaiting their turn to be called
for mercurial duty. Observing a very small telegraph-boy in a scullery
off the hall, engaged in some mysterious operations with a large
saucepan, from which volumes of steam proceeded, he went towards him.
By that time Phil had become pretty well acquainted with the faces of
his comrades, but this boy he had not previously met with. The lad was
stooping over a sink, and carefully holding in the contents of the pan
with its lid, while he strained off the boiling water.

"Sure I've not seen _you_ before?" remarked Phil.

The boy turned up a sharp-featured, but handsome and remarkably
intelligent face, and, with a quick glance at Phil, said, "Well, now,
any man might know you for an Irishman by your impudence, even if you
hadn't the brogue."

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Phil, with an amused smile.

"Mean!" echoed the boy, with the most refined extract of insolence on
his pretty little face; "I mean that small though I am, surely I'm big
enough to be _seen_."

"Well," returned