.

"We must really straighten up our foreign business a little," said he.
"I must get Novikoff's Note answered. It is clever, but the fallacies
are obvious. I wish, too, we could clear up the Afghan frontier. This
illness is most exasperating. There is so much to be done, but my
brain is clouded. Sometimes I think it is the gout, and sometimes I
put it down to the colchicum."

"What will our medical autocrat say?" laughed the Prime Minister. "You
are so irreverent, Charles. With a bishop one may feel at one's ease.
They are not beyond the reach of argument. But a doctor with his
stethoscope and thermometer is a thing apart. Your reading does not
impinge upon him. He is serenely above you. And then, of course, he
takes you at a disadvantage. With health and strength one might cope
with him. Have you read Hahnemann? What are your views upon
Hahnemann?"

The invalid knew his illustrious colleague too well to follow him down
any of those by-paths of knowledge in which he delighted to wander. To
his intensely shrewd and practical mind there was something repellent
in the waste of energy involved in a discussion upon the Early Church
or the twenty-seven principles of Mesmer. It was his custom to slip
past such conversational openings with a quick step and an averted face.

"I have hardly glanced at his writings," said he. "By-the-way, I
suppose that there was no special departmental news?"

"Ah! I had almost forgotten. Yes, it was one of the things which I
had called to tell you. Sir Algernon Jones has resigned at Tangier.
There is a vacancy there."

"It had better be filled at once. The longer delay the more
applicants."

"Ah, patronage, patronage!" sighed the Prime Minister. "Every vacancy
makes one doubtful friend and a dozen very positive enemies. Who so
bitter as the disappointed place-seeker? But you are right, Charles.
Better fill it at once, especially as there is some little trouble in
Morocco. I understand that the Duke of Tavistock would like the place
for his fourth son, Lord Arthur Sibthorpe. We are under some
obligation to the Duke."

The Foreign Minister sat up eagerly.

"My dear friend," he said, "it is the very appointment which I should
have suggested. Lord Arthur would be very much better in Tangier at
present than in--in----"

"Cavendish Square?" hazarded his chief, with a little arch query of his
eyebrows.

"Well, let us say London. He has manner and tact. He wa