Was there ever a more common-place remark? and yet it sent the blood to poor Tony's face and temples, and overwhelmed him with confusion. “You know that the girls are both away?”
“It's a capital thing they 've given him,” said Sir Arthur, trying to extract from his wife even the semblance of an interest in the young fellow's career.
“What is it?” asked she.
“How do they call you? Are you a Queen's messenger, or a Queen's courier, or a Foreign Office messenger?”
“I'm not quite sure. I believe we are messengers, but whose I don't remember.”
“They have the charge of all the despatches to the various embassies and legations in every part of the world,” said Sir Arthur, pompously.
“How addling it must be,—how confusing!”
“Why so? You don't imagine that they have to retain them, and report them orally, do you?”
“Well, I 'm afraid I did,” said she, with a little simper that seemed to say, What did it signify either way?
“They'd have made a most unlucky selection in my case,” said Tony, laughing, “if such had been the duty.”