h. Isn't that
it, Bramleigh--eh? You fancy you 're up to roughing it and hard work
because you have walked four hours through the stubble after the
partridges, or sat a 'sharp thing' across country in a red coat! Heaven
help you! It isn't with five courses and finger-glasses a man finishes
his day at Warra-Warra."

"I assure you, Mr. Cutbill, as regards my own case, I neither take a
high estimate of my own capacity nor a low one of the difficulty of
earning a living."

"Humility never paid a butcher's bill, any more than conceit!" retorted
the inexorable Cutbill, who seemed bent on opposing everything. "Have
you thought of nothing you could do? for, if you 're utterly incapable,
there's nothing for you but the public service."

"Perhaps that is the career would best suit me," said Bramleigh,
smiling; "and I have already written to bespeak the kind influence of an
old friend of my father's on my behalf."

"Who is he?"

"Sir Francis Deighton."

"The greatest humbug in the Government! He trades on being the most
popular man of his day, because he never refused anything to anybody--so
far as a promise went; but it's well known that he never gave anything
out of his own connections. Don't depend on Sir Francis, Bramleigh,
whatever you do."

"That is sorry comfort you give me."

"Don't you know any women?"

"Women--women? I know several."

"I mean women of fashion. Those meddlesome women that are always
dabbling in politics and the Stock Exchange--very deep where you think
they know nothing, and perfectly ignorant about what they pretend to
know best. They 've two-thirds of the patronage of every government in
England; you may laugh, but it's true."

"Come, Mr. Cutbill, if you 'll not take more wine we 'll join my
sister," said Bramleigh, with a faint smile.

"Get them to make you a Commissioner--it doesn't matter of what--Woods
and Forests--Bankruptcy--Lunacy--anything; it 's always two thousand a
year, and little to do for it. And if you can't be a Commissioner, be
an Inspector, and then you have your travelling expenses;" and Cutbill
winked knowingly as he spoke, and sauntered away to the drawing-room.

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE APPOINTMENT

"What will Mr. Cutbill say now?" cried Ellen, as she stood leaning on
her brother's shoulder, while he read a letter marked' "On Her Majesty's
Service," and sealed with a prodigious extravagance of wax. It ran
thus:--

Downing Street, September 10th Sir,--I have re