If, instead of ascending the broad staircase immediately on entering the Tin-Tax Office, you were to proceed straight forward, you would come to the messengers' lobby, which is the outpost, protecting the penetralia where the Commissioners and the Secretary are enshrined. The principal duty of these messengers, besides answering bells and carrying about official papers, was to protect the august personages just referred to from being intruded upon by "the public;" and as one learnt from his Scripture History that the term "Gentiles" meant "all nations except the Jews," so, after a very little official experience, one became aware that "the public" meant every body who did not hold an appointment in the Tin-Tax Office. The duties incumbent upon certain emissaries of the Office, in regard to the collection of revenue, made the head-quarters at Rutland House a grand resort of the "public," who generally came here with very belligerent intentions, and who either referred to printed documents in their hands and wished to see Mr. Simnel the Secretary (whose name appeared attached to the documents) or occasionally even demanded an interview with the Chief Commissioner, the great Sir Hickory Maddox, himself. It is needless to say that these wishes were never gratified: the messengers of the Tin-Tax Office were men to whom, in the discharge of his favourite accomplishment, Ananias could not have held a candle; men with imperturbable faces and ready tongues, who took the "public's" measure in an instant, and sent him to whatsoever clerk they thought would most readily dispose of his grievance. "I wish to see the Chief Commissioner," would exclaim a Briton, red in face, dripping in head, and bursting with indignation. To him calm, majestic Mr. Potts, the chief messenger, a fat man with a big forehead, a large stomach, flat feet in low shoes, and a general butlerish appearance--"Sir 'Ickry is with the Chanclr of Schequer, sir, on most important bisness." "The Secretary, then." "The Seckittary have gone with Sir 'Ickry, sir;--what is your bisness, sir?" "Why, I've been overcharged--" "Ah, thought so, sir! Rebate on prop'ty dooty. Walker, show the gentleman to number 15,"--and away down the loud-resounding passages, or up the mountainous stairs, would the unfortunate "public" be hurried.