"'Good afternoon! Can you tell me where your sister is? I want to offer her my good wishes on the great event.' "It wasn't Dilly at all. It was Dolly! And he was able to distinguish between the two in that dim room. And _I_ couldn't!" "Oh," said I carelessly, "I expect he noticed she wasn't wearing an engagement-ring." My wife looked at me and sighed, as over one who would spoil a romance for want of a ha'porth of sentiment. And yet I know she would have been quite scandalised if any one had hinted at tender passages between her sister and my secretary. Women are curious creatures. CHAPTER EIGHT. OF A PIT THAT WAS DIGGED, AND WHO FELL INTO IT. Dicky Lever was a hearty and not particularly intellectual youth of the What ho! type (if you know what I mean). He was employed in some capacity in a Government office, but his livelihood was not entirely dependent on his exertions therein--which was, perhaps, fortunate, as his sole claim to distinction in his Department lay in the fact of his holding the record for the highest score at small cricket in the Junior Secretaries' room. He was a member of the Leander Club, a more than usually capable amateur actor, and a very good fellow all round. The engagement was announced at the end of July, which is a busy time for this country's legislators. The session was drawing to a close, and we were passing Bills with a prodigality and despatch which provoked many not altogether undeserved gibes from a reptile Opposition Press concerning the devotion of his Majesty's Government to the worship of Saint Grouse. One night I brought Champion home to dinner between the afternoon and evening sittings. At the latter he was to move the second reading of his "Municipal Co-ordination Bill," a measure which was intended to grapple with the chaos arising from the multitude of opposing or overlapping interests that controlled the domestic arrangements of the Londoner. An effort was to be made to bring all the Gas, Electricity, Water, Paving, and other corporations into some sort of line, and prevent them from getting into each other's way and adding to the expenses and inconvenience of the much-enduring ratepayer. It was a useful little Bill; but though everybody approved of it on principle, various powerful interests were at work against it, and its prospects of getting through Committee hung in the balance. "Now, Mr Champion," said Dilly, who knew that a man always likes to be questioned about his work, especially by a pretty girl, "what will your Bill do for _us_? I have asked this person here,"--indicating her _fiance_,--"but he says parish-pump politics aren't in his department. He licks stamps at the Foreign Office," she added in explanation. "Tell her, Champion," said Dicky. "Out of my line altogether. Takes me all my time to keep an eye on those Johnnies in the Concert of Europe."