"See what he was after? Wanted to keep--the fellow straight, and cheer him up; and you've no idea how Perkins came out those Saturdays--capital stories as ever you heard--and he declared that it was a pleasure to him. "'I am rather lonely,' he used to say, 'and it is most kind of a young man to sit with me.' Kind!" "What was the upshot with your friend? Did he turn over a new leaf?" "He'll never be the man that Perkins expects; but he's doing his level best, and--is rising in the office. Perkins swears by him, and that's made a man of the fellow. "He's paid up the cash now, but--he can never pay up the kindness--confound those wax matches, they never strike--he told his mother last summer the whole story. "She wrote to Perkins--of course I don't know what was in the letter--but Perkins had the fellow into his room. 'You ought to have regarded our transaction as confidential. I am grieved you mentioned my name;' and then as I--I mean, as the fellow--was going out, 'I'll keep that letter beside my commission,' said Perkins. "If Perkins dies"--young men don't do that kind of thing, or else one would have thought--"it'll be--a beastly shame," which was a terrible collapse, and Mr. Geoffrey Lighthead of the Schedule Department left the house without further remark or even shaking hands. That was Wednesday, and on Friday morning he appeared, flourishing a large blue envelope, sealed with an imposing device, marked "On Her Majesty's Service," and addressed to "Frederick Augustus Perkins, Esq., First Class Clerk in the Schedule Department, Somerset House, London," an envelope any man might be proud to receive, and try to live up to for a week. "Rodway has retired," he shouted, "and we can't be sure in the office, but the betting is four to one--I'm ten myself--that the Board has appointed Perkins Chief Clerk;" and Lighthead did some steps of a triumphal character. "The Secretary appeared this morning after the Board had met. 'There's a letter their Honors wish taken at once to Mr. Perkins. Can any of you deliver it at his residence?' Then the other men looked at me, because--well, Perkins has been friendly with me; and that hansom came very creditably indeed. "Very low, eh? Doctors afraid not last over the night--that's hard lines--but I say, they did not reckon on this letter. Could not you read it to him? You see this was his one ambition. He could never be Secretary, not able enough, but he was made for Chief Clerk. Now he's got it, or I would not have been sent out skimming with this letter. Read it to him, and the dear old chap will be on his legs in a week." It seemed good advice; and this was what I read, while Perkins lay very still and did his best to breathe:-- "DEAR MR. PERKINS: