e informed her co-signatories of
the fact.

At the same time, an Irish paper in the National interest quietly desired
to be informed how was it that the man who made such a mull of Ireland
could be so much needed in Turkey, aided by a well-known fellow-citizen,
more celebrated for smashing lamps and wringing off knockers than for
administering the rights of a colony; and by which of his services,
ballad-writing or beating the police, he had gained the favour of the
present Cabinet. 'In fact,' concluded the writer, 'if we hear more of
this appointment, we promise our readers some biographical memoirs of the
respected individual, which may serve to show the rising youth of Ireland
by what gifts success in life is most surely achieved, as well as what
peculiar accomplishments find most merit with the grave-minded men who rule
us.'

A Cork paper announced on the same day, amongst the promotions, that Joseph
Atlee had been made C.B., and mildly inquired if the honour were bestowed
for that paper on Ireland in the last _Quarterly_, and dryly wound up by
saying, 'We are not selfish, whatever people may say of us. Our friends
on the Bosporus shall have the noble lord cheap! Let his Excellency only
assure us that he will return with his whole staff, and not leave us Mr.
Cecil Walpole, or any other like incapacity, behind him, as a director
of the Poor-Law Board, or inspector-general of gaols, or
deputy-assistant-secretary anywhere, and we assent freely to the change
that sends this man to the East and leaves us here to flounder on with such
aids to our mistakes as a Liberal Government can safely afford to spare
us.'

A paragraph in another part of the same paper, which asked if the Joseph
Atlee who, it was rumoured, was to go out as Governor to Labuan, could be
this man, had, it is needless to say, been written by himself.

The _Levant Herald_ contented itself with an authorised contradiction to
the report that Sir Joseph Atlee--the Sir was an ingenious blunder--had
conformed to Islamism, and was in treaty for the palace of Tashkir Bey at
Therapia.

With a neatness and tact all his own, Atlee narrated Brumsey's blunder in a
tone so simple and almost deferential, that Lord Danesbury could show the
letter to any of his colleagues. The whole spirit of the document was
regret that a very well-intentioned gentleman of good connections
and irreproachable morals should be an ass! Not that he employed the
insufferable designation.