old coat, and go
down into my workshop, where I have a little tinkering to do with one of
the electric wires which has gone wrong, and threatens to burn up the
premises. So glad to see you. Always think these informal conferences
between individual members of the two Houses are not only personally
agreeable, but may be fraught with the greatest benefit to the State,
which we both serve. Wait till you see my dog move."

The noble MARKISS, stooping down a little stiffly (owing to the
tightness of the hose), turned a clock-key. After a few rotations, the
dog, being set in the right direction, moved out of the way.

"Yes," said the MARKISS, pleased at my enthusiasm, "that is rather a
triumph, I think. It is common enough to see an automatic dog move its
two fore-paws; but, observe, _all_ the paws here work in natural
sequence. Took me six months to bring this to perfection, working at it
at the time when you would read in the newspapers of my conspiring with
HARTINGTON to keep out GLADSTONE, or negociating with BISMARCK to pull
the chestnuts out of the fire for him in Africa."

Your host leads you to King James's Room, a fine apartment, which stands
to-day in exactly the state in which the King left it when he got up to
breakfast. But the place is a little stuffy, and you do not care for the
particular state of fadedness yet reached by the Turkey carpet. Walking
beside your host, with one eye on the sword, which seems determined to
get between somebody's legs, you pace the Marble Hall, cricking your
neck with gazing upon the heads of the Caesars that look down on you from
panels in the coved ceiling. Up you go by the grand staircase with its
massive carved baluster with unclothed Highlanders playing the bagpipes
and lions bearing heraldic shields; into the Long Gallery, with its
coats of mail, its antique japanned cabinets, its cradle in which
ELIZABETH squealed, its massive fireplaces, its rare panelling; into the
Armoury, where you try on several suits of armour and handle relics of
the Great Armada cast ashore in the spacious times of ELIZABETH; on to
the Library with its rare collection of papers, including Lord
BURLEIGH'S _Diary_, in which you are privileged to read in the original
manuscript the well-known poem which tells how:

"Here he lives in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,
Not a lord in all the county
Is so great a lord as he."

On to the Summer Dining-room through th