“To prevent his having any suspicions,” continued Cunningham, “it will be best to give Mr. Percy some probable reason for Lord Oldborough’s _taking to us_ so suddenly. It will be well to hint that you have opportunities of obliging about the borough, or about the address at the county-meeting, or--” “No, no; no particulars; never go to particulars,” said old Falconer: “stick to generals, and you are safe. Say, in general, that I had an opportunity of obliging government. Percy is not curious, especially about _jobbing_. He will ask no questions; or, if he should, I can easily put him upon a wrong scent. Now, Cunningham, listen to me: I have done my best, and have pushed you into a fine situation: but remember, you cannot get on in the diplomatic line without a certain degree of diplomatic information. I have pointed this out to you often; you have neglected to make yourself master of these things, and, for want of them in office, you will come, I fear, some day or other to shame.” “Do not be afraid of that--no danger of my coming to shame any more than a thousand other people in office, who never trouble themselves about diplomatic information, and all that. There is always some clerk who knows the forms, and with those, and looking for what one wants upon the spur of the occasion in books and pamphlets, and so forth, one may go on very well--if one does but know how to keep one’s own counsel. You see I got through with Lord Oldborough to-day--” “Ay--but I assure you I trembled for you, and I could have squeezed myself into an auger-hole once, when you blundered about that treaty of which I knew that you knew nothing.” “Oh! sir, I assure you I had turned over the leaves. I was correct enough as to the dates; and, suppose I blundered, as my brother Buckhurst says, half the world never know what they are saying, and the other half never find it out.--Why, sir, you were telling me the other night such a blunder of Prince Potemkin’s--” “Very true,” interrupted the commissioner; “but you are not Prince Potemkin, nor yet a prime minister; if you were, no matter how little you knew--you might get other people to supply your deficiencies. But now, in your place, and in the course of making your way upwards, you will be called upon to supply _others_ with the information they may want. And you know I shall not be always at your elbow; therefore I really am afraid--” “Dear sir, fear nothing,” said Cunningham: “I shall do as well as others do--the greatest difficulty is over. I have taken the first step, and it has cost nothing.” “Well, get on, my boy--honestly, if you can--but get on.” CHAPTER III.