him that I was from home?"

"Yes, sir; but he said that his business was so important that he 'd
wait for your return, if I could not say where he might find you. This
is his card."

Harcourt took it, and read, "Major Scaresby, from Naples." "What think
you, Glencore? Ought we to admit this gentleman? It may be that this visit
relates to what we have been speaking about."

"Scaresby--Scaresby--I know the name," muttered Glencore. "To be sure!
There was a fellow that hung about Florence and Rome long ago, and
called himself Scaresby; an ill-tongued old scandal-monger people
encouraged in a land where newspapers are not permitted."

"He affects to have something very pressing to communicate. Perhaps it
were better to have him up."

"Don't make me known to him, then, or let me have to talk to him," said
Glencore, throwing himself down on a sofa; "and let his visit be as
brief as you can manage."

Harcourt made a significant sign to his servant, and the moment after
the Major was heard ascending the stairs.

"Very persistent of me, you'll say, Colonel Harcourt. Devilish tenacious
of my intentions, to force myself thus upon you!" said the Major, as
he bustled into the room, with a white leather bag in his hand; "but I
promised Upton I'd not lie down on a bed till I saw you."

"All the apologies should come from my side, Major," said Harcourt,
as he handed him to a chair; "but the fact was, that having an invalid
friend with me, quite incapable of seeing company, and having matters of
some importance to discuss with him--"

"Just so," broke in Scaresby; "and if it were not that I had given a
very strong pledge to Upton, I 'd have given my message to your servant,
and gone off to my hotel. But he laid great stress on my seeing you, and
obtaining certain papers which, if I understand aright, have reached you
in mistake, being meant for the Minister at Downing Street. Here's his
own note, however, which will explain all."

It ran thus:--

Dear H------,--So I find that some of the despatches have got
into your enclosure instead of that "on his Majesty's service." I
therefore send off the insupportable old bore who will deliver this,
to rescue them, and convey them to their fitting destination. "The
extraordinaries" will be burdened to some fifty or sixty pounds for it;
but they very rarely are expended so profitably as in getting rid of an
intolerable nuisance. Give him all the things, therefore, and pack
him off to