I am now to pass to a different subject--to wit, a visit I paid some time since to the India Office. The why of the wherefore was that, in conversation with the ALLBUTT-INNETTS, I had boasted freely of the credit I was in with certain high grade India Official nobs, who could refuse me nothing. Which was hitherto the positive fact, since I had never requested any favour at their hands. But Mrs ALLBUTT-INNETT stated that she had heard that the reception-soirées at said India Office were extremely enjoyable and classy, and inquired whether I possessed sufficient influence to obtain for her tickets of admission to one of these select entertainments. Naturally I had to reply that I could indubitably do the trick, and would at once proceed to the India Office and interview one of the senior clerks who regarded me as his brother. So, after procuring a _Whitaker Almanack_, and hunting up the name of one of the most senior, I cabbed to Whitehall. Inside the entrance I found an attendant sitting at a table absorbed in reading, who rose and inquired my business, and upon my statement that I desired to see Mr BREAKWATER, Esq., on urgent business, courteously directed me up a marble staircase, at the top of which was a second attendant, also engaged in brown study--for the attendants appear to be laudably addicted to the cultivation of their minds. He informed me that I should find Mr BREAKWATER'S room down a certain corridor, and proceeding thither, I stopped a clerk who was hurrying along with his hands full of documents, and represented that I had come for an immediate interview with Mr BREAKWATER on highly important matters. He demanded incredulously whether Mr BREAKWATER expected me. This elevated my monkey, and I retorted, haughtily, that I was the bosom friend of said Mr B., who would be overjoyed to receive me, and, following him into a room, I peremptorily demanded that he should inform his master without fail that Baboo JABBERJEE was there. Whereupon, with the nonchalance of a Jack in an office, he rang a bell and desired an attendant to usher me to the waiting-room. There, in a large gloomy apartment, surrounded by portraits of English and Native big pots, I did sit patiently sucking the golden nob of my umbrella for a quarter of an hour, until the attendant returned, saying, that Mr BREAKWATER could see me now, and presently showed me into the aforesaid private room, where, behind a large table covered with wicker baskets containing dockets and memoranda, _et hoc genus omne_, sat the very gentleman whom I had recently taken for his own underling! Formerly I should have proffered abject excuses, but I am now sufficiently up in British observances to know that the only necessary is a frank and breezy apology.