"I'm not fond of Mr. Kissing at all."
"You'll have to go back to him, and let somebody come here who will not be too independent to obey my orders. Here are two most important letters have been lying here all day, instead of being sent up to me at the Treasury."
"Of course they have been lying there. I thought you were at the club."
"I told you I should go to the Treasury. I have been there all the morning with the chancellor,"—when Sir Raffle spoke officially of the chancellor he was not supposed to mean the Lord Chancellor—"and here I find letters which I particularly wanted lying upon my desk now. I must put an end to this kind of thing. I must, indeed. If you like the outer office better say so at once, and you can go."
"I'll think about it, Sir Raffle."
"Think about it! What do you mean by thinking about it? But I can't talk about that now. I'm very busy, and shall be here till past seven. I suppose you can stay?"
"All night, if you wish it, sir."
"Very well. That will do for the present.—I wouldn't have had these letters delayed for twenty pounds."
"I don't suppose it would have mattered one straw if both of them remained unopened till next week." This last little speech, however, was not made aloud to Sir Raffle, but by Johnny to himself in the solitude of his own room.
Very soon after that he went away, Sir Raffle having discovered that one of the letters in question required his immediate return to the West End. "I've changed my mind about staying. I shan't stay now. I should have done if these letters had reached me as they ought."