“Well, we are all here now, so we had better proceed to business; take your seats, please, gentlemen,” said a very important-looking gentleman in a red gown and wig, seated at the head of a long table on which were pens and paper arranged neatly before each chair.
“Members of the Committee will please take their seats in the following order of precedence,” drawled a melancholy voice from a desk at the further end of the room, where a worried-looking little old man, in a very rusty black gown, and who wore enormous green goggles, sat with a large book open before him, and a quill pen stuck behind his ear:—
“The King’s Exaggerator,” he called out;
“The Lord High Fiddle-de-dee;
“The First Lord of the Cash Box;
“The Advertiser General;
“The Minister of Experiments;
“The Public Persecutor;
“The Busybody Extraordinary;
“The Gentleman of the Glove Box;