The old Foreign Office in Downing Street was a dingy building enough, with a sort of crusted, charwomanly look about it, suggestive of anything but Secretaries of State, ambassadors, and such-like sublimities. The _Dii majores_ occupied tapestried[26] chambers facing the Park, but the great mass of the rooms in which the clerks worked looked out upon nothing but Downing Street on one side, and on the other a rookery so richly caked with soot and dirt that the very windows must long since have ceased to let in a ray of light—a nest of squalid slums that have long since been improved off the face of London. One house there was among those crazy old tenements occupied by some professional man in a small way of business, with two pretty daughters, maidens who from the security of their father’s abode would make all sorts of loving demonstrations to the young scribes opposite. Meet them outside, and their eyes would be cast demurely upon the ground, chaste and virginal. Half an hour later they would be at their old tricks, casting the most appealing glances across the shabby street. They were like the veiled beauties of Constantinople, who, knowing themselves to be quite safe, will do all they can to allure the passing foreigner. Poor Lionel Moore, one of our dragomans, who had lived in the Levant from childhood, used to tell such amusing stories about those elusive sirens. One day he was walking the streets of Pera when he saw a young Turkish lady riding upon a very smart mule, with an escort of three or four eunuchs, gloriously apparelled, evidently a lady of quality. As she passed Moore she partially put aside her yashmak and gave him a most bewitching glance—such a look as St. Anthony himself could not have resisted. He, always ready for an adventure, followed the temptress, though the sun was scorching. When she had made a fool of him long enough, the lady called up her chief eunuch and said, “You see that infidel?—go and fetch him a glass of water to cool him; he must be hot.” As Moore spoke Turkish like a native the arrow hit the mark, and he slunk away, discomfited, down a side street. Naturally it was with no little trepidation and a rather fluttering heart that on a bright morning in the month of February, 1858, I for the first time set foot inside the gloomy portals of the sacrosanct F. O. But my alarm was soon relieved, for in the hall were two gorgeous young clerks, sartorially superb, both acquaintances of mine, who gave me the kindliest of welcomes, and saved me from the ordeal of making myself known to good old Weller, the porter. The real moment of terror came when a few minutes later, having sent in my name, I was ushered into the room of Mr. Hammond, the Under-Secretary of State. But even in that Holy of Holies—the temple of the Norns that governed the destinies of nations—fear was dispelled by the great kindness of the High Priest.