Between Sir Hickory Maddox the senior, and Mr. Beresford the junior, there were two other Commissioners. One was the Honourable Morris Peck, who had been a Gentleman Usher at Court,--at whose name years ago young ladies used to blush, and matrons to gather themselves together in brood-hen fashion for the protection of their chicks,--a roysterer at Crockford's, a friend of Pea-Green Payne and the Golden Hall and that lot,--a "devil of a fellow, sir!" but who was now merely a hook-nosed old gentleman in a high coat-collar and a curly-brimmed hat; wearing false teeth, dyed hair, and blacked eyebrows; who always slept peacefully until his signature was required, when he gave it in a very shaky schoolboy scrawl. The other was Mr. Miles O'Scardon, an Irish gentleman of ancient family, but limited means, who had represented Ballyhogue in Parliament for years, and who had obtained his appointment for the fidelity with which he had always obeyed the summons of the ministerial whip. Beyond the Board-room lay the sanctum of the Chief-Commissioner's private secretary, a young man always chosen for his good looks, his good clothes, and his gentlemanly bearing, who was envied by his brother juniors, but who had to answer Sir Hickory's bell, and was consequently taunted by the epithet "Jeames." And beyond that, though unconnected with it, lay the Secretary's room. A large, light, airy room, far away from the noise and bustle, and looking on to the river. Round the walls are huge oak-presses, filled with tied-up bundles of confidential papers, secret reports of the out-door agents of the Tin-Tax Office, which, if published, would have astonished the world by throwing quite a new light on the incomes of several of its idols. Maps were there too, and framed tables of statistics, and the Stationers' Almanac; and over the mantelpiece hung a proof-before-letters engraving of the portrait of Sir Hickory Maddox, after Grant, with an exact likeness of that great official's favourite inkstand and quill-pen, and with a correctness in the fit of the trousers such as was never achieved by the great original. There was a round table in the middle of the room, divided into two equal portions by a line of books of reference--Guide-books, M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, Haydn's Dates, the Post-Office Directory, Bradshaw, and other light reading: one side of the line of demarcation was bare (save at one o'clock, when it bore the little tray containing the Secretary's light luncheon); on the other lay the Secretary's blotting-book, pen-stand, and paper-case.