After waiting nearly an hour, my Lawyer and I came to the conclusion that we must have been forgotten, and determined to go upon a voyage of discovery on our own account. Leaving the waiting-room, we glided up a broad stone staircase and entered through a green-baize door a large apartment apparently filled with books. Seated at a desk was an amiable-looking, middle-aged gentleman surrounded with plans, papers, packets, and the usual paraphernalia of a Government Office. Between this room and another was a second green-baize door dividing the two apartments the one from the other. In the second room we saw several other amiable-looking middle-aged gentlemen, grouped round a long table, and apparently engaged in discussing sandwiches and sherry. "I am sorry to disturb you," said my Lawyer, courteously. The amiable-looking middle-aged gentleman at the desk, raised his eyes, looked at us, started violently, and turned as white as a sheet. My Solicitor continued, "We want to know----" He could get no further. The gentleman jumped up from his desk in an agony of terror, and, before we could prevent his departure, disappeared with an unearthly yell, through the baize door into the second apartment. The door was then hurriedly locked, and all we could do would not induce any of the occupants of the room to open it. We tried in vain all sorts of inducements, from the rattling of heavy chains up to thunder-thumps. Some little time elapsed, and then the short-sighted messenger made his appearance. "I never told you to come up," said he, in an aggrieved tone, "and you've got me into trouble. You must be off. The Board say that your application, whatever it is, can't be entertained." To retire was all we could do--and we did it. On regaining the street, I sorrowfully bade my Solicitor good-bye. "Oh dear no, Sir," he said, with the ghost of a smile. "You have quite forgotten one little formality--my Bill of Costs." Upon this he produced an enormous roll of paper! The rest of my story can be briefly told. Unable to pay my Lawyer's bill, I was compelled to seek refuge in a country where I could not be reached by the Extradition law. I took a passage in _The Flying Dutchman_, and went to Spain. I am now settled in Grenada, where I am believed by the peasantry to be an English ghost that has escaped from a branch of the Moorish Alhambra that has been recently established in Leicester Square. I find some consolation in the thought that those whom I now haunt seem to be growing rather fond of me. I trust that this is not a specimen of the national politeness, and that the affection they apparently entertain towards me is not merely assumed to save me unnecessary embarrassment. * * * * * [Illustration: INTERIORS AND EXTERIORS. No. 55. IN LOWTHER ARCADIA AT CHRISTMAS TIME.] * * * * * WAITING HIS ORDERS.