"Work for your living!" growls out the old gentleman. "A pack of lazy placemen. Egad! the fellow talks as though stone-breaking were his occupation, and he'd just straightened his back for five minutes. Work for your living! Do you call sticking your initial to the corner of a lot of figures that you've never read, work? Do you call scrawling your signature at the bottom of some nonsensical document, to prove that you're the 'obedient, humble servant,' of some idiot whom you've never seen, work? Do you call reading the--" "Now stop, Sir Marmaduke," said Beresford, laughing; "I bar you there. You mustn't repeat that _rococo_ old rubbish about reading the newspaper and poking the fire as the sole work in a Government office. That _is_ slander." "I am bound to say," said Mr. Townshend pompously, "that when, in my capacity either as one of the directors of the East-India Company, or Prime Warden of the Bottle Blowers' Company, I have ever had occasion to transact business with any of the Government establishments, I have always found myself well treated." "I am delighted to hear such testimony from you, sir," said Beresford, with some apparent deference, and inwardly thinking that the two positions named looked healthy as regards money. "God bless my soul!" bawled Sir Marmaduke. "Here's a man drives up in a big carriage, with a powdered-headed jackass to let down the steps, and then he 'testifies' that he gets a messenger to take in his name and that he isn't insulted by the clerks. I wish with all my heart, Townshend, that you were a poor man with a patent to bring out, or a grievance to complain of, or an inquiry to make, and you'd devilish soon see the reception you'd get." "I hear," said Mr. Vincent, with a mind to turn the conversation "that a new system of refreshment-supply has recently been introduced into some of our public departments. I have a nephew in the Draft-and-Docket Office, whom I called upon about one o'clock the other day, and I found him engaged upon some very excellent _cotelettes à la Soubise_, which he told me were prepared in the establishment. That appears to me a most admirable arrangement." "Very admirable," growled Sir Marmaduke "for the public, who are paying the young ruffians for eating their Frenchified rubbish. By heavens! a clerk at ninety pounds a year, and a made-dish for lunch!" "Quite right, Mr. Townshend," said Stone; "they feed stunningly now, and don't drink badly either. By the way, Beresford, I'm agent for Goupil's house at Bordeaux, and I could put in a capital cheap claret into your place, just the thing for your fellows in the hot weather. The tenders are out now, and a word from you would serve me." "But, surely," said Barbara, laughing, "if, as Sir Marmaduke says, you don't work now, Mr. Beresford, you'll be less inclined than ever after M. Goupil's claret."