"'_The D---- of M---- is still at the Hague, where he is being sumptuously entertained. Much is made of His Majesty's anger, but the D---- is well supplied with money from an unknown source, which some take to be significant. At a ball given by their Highnesses on the eleventh, he danced an English country dance with the Lady Mary, wherein his grace and skill won all hearts_.' "That is better. And now what next? '_This day an Ambassador from the King of Siam in the East Indies waited on His Majesty with great marks of respect_.' Umph! Well leave it, but add, 'Ah, _si sic propius_.' "And then, '_There are rumours that His Majesty intends to call a parliament shortly, in which plan he is hindered only by the state of his gout_.' "Out with that and write this:--'_In the city is much murmuring that a parliament is not called. Though His Majesty has not played lately at tennis, he showed himself yesterday in Hyde Park, so that some who maintain his health to be the cause deserve no weight. In his company were His Highness the Duke of York and the French Ambassador_.' "There, you fool," my master continued, flinging two-thirds of the packets back to me. "You will have to amend these, and another time you will know better." Which showed me that I had still something to learn; and that as there are tricks in all trades, so Mr. Timothy Brome, the writer, did not enjoy without reason the reputation of the most popular newsvendor in London. But as I addressed myself to the business with zeal, I presently began to acquire a mastery over his methods; and my knowledge of public affairs growing with each day's work, as in such an employment it could not fail to grow, I was able before very long to take the composition of the letters in a great measure off his hands; leaving him free to walk Change Alley and the coffee-houses, where his snuff-coloured suit and snappish wit were as well known as his secret charity was little suspected. In private, indeed, he was of so honest a disposition, his faults of temper notwithstanding, as to cause me at first some surprise; since I fancied an incompatibility between this and the laxity of his public views; which he carried so far that he was not only a political skeptic himself, but held all others to be the same; maintaining that the best public men were only of this or that colour because it suited their pockets or ambitions, and that, of all, he respected most Lord Halifax and his party, who at least trimmed openly, and never cried loudly for either extreme.