"After that jolly little dinner you gave us down at Greenwich. You drove home, you know; we came up by rail. I suppose Quartermaine's champagne had worked the charm; but the lord of William's bosom certainly sat very lightly on its throne, and he was, in fact, what the wicked call 'tight.' At the London Bridge Station I hailed a hansom, and Billy got in with me, saying I could set him down. Knowing that Billy is popularly supposed to reside in a cellar in Short's Gardens, Drury Lane, I told the driver to take us a short cut to that pleasant locality. Billy fell asleep, but woke up just as we arrived in Drury Lane, looked round him, shouted: 'This will do!' stopped the cab, and jumped out. Now, I thought, I've got him! I told the cabman to drive slowly on, and I stepped out and dodged behind a lamp. But Billy was too much for me: in the early dawn I saw him looking straight at me, smiting his nose with his forefinger, and muttering defiantly: 'No, you don't!' So eventually I left him." "Of course you did. No, no, Chief; William is not likely to fall a prey to such small deer. He will dissipate this mystery on one great occasion." "And that will be----?" "When he gets his promotion. When the edict is promulgated, elevating William to the senior class, he will bid you all welcome to a most choice, elegant, and, not to put too fine a point on it, classical repast, prepared in his own home." "Well, if we're to wait till then, you'll enjoy your classic home, or whatever you call it, for a long time unencumbered with our society," said Derinzy. "Who's to have the next vacancy--Barlow's vacancy, I mean; who's to have it, Chief?" "My dear boy," said Mr. Courtney, with a shoulder-shrug, "you are aware that I can scarcely be considered _au mieux_ with the powers that be--meaning Mrs. Branwhite--and consequently I am not likely to be taken into confidence in such matters. But I understand, I have heard, quite _par hazard_," and the old gentleman waved his double glasses daintily in the air as he pronounced the French phrase, "that Mr. Dickson is the selected--person." "D--n Mr. Dickson!" said Paul Derinzy. "Hear, hear!" said Mr. Dunlop; "my sentiments entirely, well and forcibly put. A job, sir, a beastly job. 'John Branwhite, Jobmaster,' ought to be written on the Secretary's door; 'neat flies' over deserving people's heads, and 'experienced drivers;' those scoundrels that he employs to spy, and sneak, and keep the fellows up to their work. No, sir, no chance for my being put up; as the party in the Psalms remarks, 'promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west.'" "No, Billy, from the south-west this time," said Paul Derinzy. "Dickson's people have been having Branwhite and his wife to dine in Belgrave Square; and our sweet Scratchetary was so delighted with Lady Selina, and so fascinated by the swell surroundings, that he has been grovelling ever since: hence Dickson's lift."