And Charley was there, acting as best man. It was just the place and just the work for Charley. He forgot all his difficulties, all his duns, and also all his town delights. Without a sigh he left his lady in Norfolk Street to mix gin-sling for other admirers, and felt no regret though four brother navvies were going to make a stunning night of it at the 'Salon de Seville dansant,' at the bottom of Holborn Hill. However, he had his hopes that he might be back in time for some of that fun. And Undy Scott was there. He and Alaric had fraternized so greatly of late that the latter had, as a matter of course, asked him to his wedding, and Mrs. Woodward had of course expressed her delight at receiving Alaric's friend. Undy also was a pleasant fellow for a wedding party; he was full of talk, fond of ladies, being no whit abashed in his attendance on them by the remembrance of his bosom's mistress, whom he had left, let us hope, happy in her far domestic retirement. Undy Scott was a good man at a wedding, and made himself specially agreeable on this occasion. But the great glory of the day was the presence of Sir Gregory Hardlines. It was a high honour, considering all that rested on Sir Gregory's shoulders, for so great a man to come all the way down to Hampton to see a clerk in the Weights and Measures married. Cum tot sustineas, et tanta negotia solus, --for we may call it 'solus,' Sir Warwick and Mr. Jobbles being sources of more plague than profit in carrying out your noble schemes--while so many things are on your shoulders, Sir Gregory; while you are defending the Civil Service by your pen, adorning it by your conduct, perfecting it by new rules, how could any man have had the face to ask you to a wedding? Nevertheless Sir Gregory was there, and did not lose the excellent opportunity which a speech at the breakfast-table afforded him for expressing his opinion on the Civil Service of his country. And so Gertrude Woodward became Gertrude Tudor, and she and Alaric were whirled away by a post-chaise and post-boy, done out with white bows, to the Hampton Court station; from thence they whisked up to London, and then down to Dover; and there we will leave them. They were whisked away, having first duly gone through the amount of badgering which the bride and bridegroom have to suffer at the wedding breakfast-table. They drank their own health in champagne. Alaric made a speech, in which he said he was quite unworthy of his present happiness, and Gertrude picked up all the bijoux, gold pencil-cases, and silver cream-jugs, which were thrown at her from all sides. All the men made speeches, and all the women laughed, but the speech of the day was that celebrated one made by Sir Gregory, in which he gave a sketch of Alaric Tudor as the beau idéal of a clerk in the Civil Service. 'His heart,' said he, energetically, 'is at the Weights and Measures;' but Gertrude looked at him as though she did not believe a word of it.