One morning I had occasion to visit the British Museum. That mausoleum of learning is not an habitual resort of mine, but on this occasion I had found it necessary to refresh my memory on the subject of a small principality situated somewhere in the Pacific, and reported to be in a state of considerable unrest, concerning which the member for Upper Gumbtree, an unpleasantly omniscient young man with a truculent manner, had been asking questions in the House. It seemed that British interests in that quarter were not being adequately protected by our Department, and this extremely pushing gentleman was now gaining much cheap applause in the columns of those low-priced organs which make a living by deriding his Majesty's Ministers, by bombarding us with fatuous inquiries on the subject. My Chief had only the most hazy notion about the place--as a matter of fact I do not believe that either he or any of the permanent officials had ever heard of it--and I was in a precisely similar condition. I was accordingly bidden to get up the subject, and accumulate a mass of information thereon which would not only satiate the appetite of the honourable member, but choke him off for all time. Finding myself in want of a particular Gazetteer which was not to be found in the office, and being in no mood to take a clerk, however uncritical, into my confidence, I called a hansom and drove straight to the Museum; where, having ensconced myself in the reading-room with the work in question, I prepared to devote a dusty and laborious morning to the service of State. Immediately opposite me sat a gigantic young man of a slightly threadbare appearance, who was copying some screed out of a bulky tome before him. I regarded him in a reminiscent sort of way for a few minutes, and presently found that my scrutiny was being returned fourfold. Next came an enormous hand that was suddenly thrust across the table towards me, and I remembered him. We had met six years ago in a railway train, under circumstances which made me extremely glad to make his acquaintance at any price. Kitty and I were on our honeymoon, and happened to be travelling on a Saturday afternoon from Edinburgh to Perth in a train packed to suffocation with the supporters of a football team of the baser sort. We were bound for Inchellan, the Scottish residence of my Chief, who was sending to meet us at Perth.