"We will sing," he said in a clear voice, "in the Twenty-third Psalm--the whole of it!-- 'The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want----'" * * * * * The Psalms of David, as rendered into English verse by Nahum Tate and others, are not remarkable for poetic merit; neither does the old Scottish fashion of singing the same, seated and without accompaniment, conduce to a concord of sweet sounds. But there are no tunes like old tunes, and there are no hearts like full hearts. If ever a song went straight up to heaven, the Twenty-third Psalm, borne up on the wings of "Martyrdom," did so that night. CHAPTER TWO. INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF. The time had undoubtedly arrived when I must have a Private Secretary. Kitty, for one, insisted on it. She said that I was ruining my health in the service of an ungrateful country, and added that she, personally, declined to be left a widow at twenty-eight-and-a-half to oblige anybody. "It is exactly the wrong age," she said. "If it had happened four or five years ago, I could have done pretty well for myself. Now, I should be out of the running among the _debutantes_, and a little too young and flighty to suit a middle-aged bachelor." I may add that my wife does not often talk in this unfeeling manner. But she suffers at times from a desire to live up to a sort of honorary reputation for sprightly humour, conferred upon her by undiscriminating admirers in the days before she became engaged to me. As a matter of fact, her solicitude on my behalf was largely due to an ambition to see a little paragraph in the newspapers, announcing that "Mr Adrian Inglethwaite, M.P., Director of the Sub-Tropical and Arctic Department at the Foreign Office, has appointed Mr Blankley Dash to be his Private Secretary." Dolly and Dilly seconded the motion. They had not the effrontery to wrap up their motives in specious expressions of concern for my health, but stated their point of view with brutal frankness, as is their wont. I was an old dear, they conceded, and of course Kitty was Kitty; but a sister and brother-in-law were, to put it quite plainly, a hopelessly dull couple to live with: and the visits of Mesdames Dolly and Dilly to our roof-tree would, it was hinted, be more frequent and enduring if the establishment was strengthened by the addition of a presentable young man. I consented. It was three to one. To any one acquainted with the trio of sisters arrayed against me, it will at once be apparent that "these odds" (as the halfpenny papers say) "but faintly represent the superiority of the winning side." Having thus dragged the reader without apology into the most intimate regions of my family circle, I had perhaps better introduce myself and my _entourage_ a little more formally.