The Grand Lama becomes more and more irate, glares through his gold double eye-glasses at the newspaper, wherein he is reading atrociously "levelling" views promulgated by a correspondent, gives utterance to smothered sounds indicative of indignation and contempt, and is just about to burst forth in a torrent of rage, when the door opens, and a footman, entering, hands a card on a salver to his master. As when, in full pursuit of the flying matador, the bull in the arena wheels round and engages the lithe picador who has just planted a flag-bearing dart in his quivering carcass, so Mr. Carruthers turns upon the servant who had interposed between him and the intended objects of his attack. "What's this?" said he, in a sharp voice. "Card, sir," said the footman, utterly unmoved, and with the complacent expression of an ancient gurgoyle on a Saxon church. "Do you think I'm blind?" said his master. "I see it's a card. Where did it come from?" "Gentleman in the library, sir. Said you was at breakfast; told me no 'urry, and giv' me his card." Mr. Carruthers looks up suspiciously at Thomas footman, but Thomas footman is still gurgoylesque. Then Mr. Carruthers replaces his eye-glasses, and, looking at the card, reads thereon, in old English characters, "Mr. Dalrymple," and in pencil the words "Home Office." "I will be with the gentleman in a moment." Only stopping at the looking-glass to run his fingers through his hair and to settle the tie of his checked cravat, Mr. Carruthers creaks out of the room. Mr. Dalrymple, of the Home Office, has established himself in a comfortable chair, from which he rises on Mr. Carruthers's entrance. He is a tall, bald-headed man, and, to Mr. Carruthers's horror, wears a full-flowing brown beard. The Grand Lama, whose ideas on this point are out of date, knows that beards are now generally worn by members of the aristocracy as well as foreigners and billiard-sharpers, but cannot conceive that any government has been so preposterously lax as to permit its officials to indulge in such nonsense. Consequently he refers to the card again, and, his first impressions being verified, is dumb with astonishment. Nevertheless, he controls his feelings sufficiently to bow and to point to a chair. "I am an early visitor, Mr. Carruthers," says Mr. Dalrymple, "but the fact is, my business is pressing. I came down to Amherst by the mail train last night, but I would not disturb you at so late an hour, and, moreover, I could have done no good by seeing you then; so I slept at the inn. My visit to you is on business, as I presume you understand?" Mr. Dalrymple says this pointedly, as the Grand Lama's face is rapidly assuming an open mouth and sunken jaw expression of idiotcy. He recovers himself by an effort, and, glancing at the card, mutters "Home Office."