“I have sent for you, Mr. Clery,” said the Postmaster-General, eyeing the stripling whose height was by no means dwarfed by Mr. Raikes’s own six feet three or four inches, “principally because I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. You have such an exceptionally bad official character that it made me curious to see what you are like.” This private interview lasted an hour or more; and many points were discussed between them; and from that interview it is probable that Mr. Raikes learnt more of the actual grievances of the staff than he might have learnt in a month through the ordinary channels, and wading through memorials and petitions. It was the very first time in the annals of the Post-Office that a Postmaster-General had invited an agitator into his presence; but it is more than probable that Mr. Raikes had some knowledge of the man before he met him. He must have learnt something of his antecedents, his connections, and his character beforehand; and when he met the youthful agitator face to face, it is likely in a man of Mr. Raikes’s disposition that he felt some sort of a sympathy with the ambitious and energetic youth whose literary aspirations were to an extent a reflex of those of his own earlier days. For Mr. Raikes himself had been an industrious literary hand, a leader-writer for the _Standard_, a poet, and a playwright. But over and above all that it is only reasonable to think that Mr. Raikes’s principal motive was to gather first-hand and in an informal way, from an accredited authority, the leading agitator himself, what really were the grievances of the postal side of the service. In selecting Clery he selected a ready and a logical exponent of the case. If Clery was not flattered, he certainly went away with a better understanding of Mr. Raikes than before. His and others’ estimate of the Postmaster-General had been based on a misconception of him; his utterances in regard to him, though always as respectful as the official regulations demanded, betrayed the impression that Mr. Raikes was one of whom they had to expect scant consideration.