There was scarcely such a friendly expression on Mr. Talfourd's face as on the other's. "Are you not forgetting that Mrs. Lamb is my employer? that I am merely her servant since I receive her wages?" "Her servant?"--the laugh again--"I hope she doesn't overwork you. Come, Talfourd, be the good sort you are, help a lame dog over a stile. I'm spoiling for a flutter, and I'm dead sure that the only chance I have of getting it is by means of a helping word from you." "You must excuse me, Mr. Lamb. I am engaged to do clerical work for Mrs. Lamb. I should not presume to speak to her on the subject you have mentioned." "Presume?--what ho! Now Talfourd, you're no kid any more than I am. You know as well as I do that you can twist my wife round your finger. All I want you to do is to give her a twist for my particular benefit." "I can give you no answer but the one I have already given." "Oh yes, you can--and you will. I'll look in for it to-morrow morning--by that time you'll have thought it over. You're not so crusty as you make yourself out to be. That'll be four-and-twenty hours clean thrown away; and when you're spoiling for a burst like I am, that's a deuce of time. But I shall have every confidence in your kind offices when you've had a chance to see just what I'm driving at." When Mr. Lamb had retired Mr. Talfourd seemed unhappy. "Every time that man talks to me I want to kick him. I wonder if he affects other people in the same way--the unmentionable animal! If, as the husband of his wife, he thinks himself entitled to talk to me like that, it's time for me to think things over. I must know where I am moving. Three hundred pounds are three hundred pounds--I know that as well as any one--but they may be earned too dearly. It is one thing to be Mrs. Lamb's secretary, quite another to be----" He did not finish the sentence even mentally. Sitting down to the table he drew towards him the little heap of correspondence which was supposed to justify his secretarial existence. There were about a dozen envelopes, mostly containing circulars of different kinds. "I believe that the letters are examined, and any of the slightest importance retained, before they are sent to me. The idea of my receiving three hundred pounds a year for opening circulars is too thin." While he sat with both elbows on the table, staring ruefully in front of him, the door opened again, and Mrs. Lamb came in. "At work? I hope I'm not disturbing you."