"It does you infinite credit, Sir Christopher," interrupted Mr. Lykspittal, with an obsequious bow; "and with a leetle correction——"
"Oh! of course you will use your discretion. Well, now we understand each other, Mr. Lykspittal; and you will begin the work immediately. Of course you must introduce a great quantity of correspondence between myself and the leading men of this age, but who are now all dead."
"Have you any such letters by you, sir?" enquired the literary gentleman.
"Not I!" ejaculated Sir Christopher Blunt, speaking bluntly indeed.
"Oh! that's no matter—I can easily invent some," observed Mr. Lykspittal. "I thank you most sincerely for your kind—your generous patronage, my dear Sir Christopher. In fact, I can never forget it—I—I——"
And Mr. Lykspittal, by way of working his sycophancy up to the highest possible pitch—or, shall we not say, down to the lowest degree of self-abasement—affected to burst into tears and rushed from the room.
"Poor fellow! he's quite overcome by his feelings," murmured Sir Christopher to himself. "That's what I call real gratitude, now!"
And, having mused upon this and divers other matters for some few minutes, the worthy knight went up stairs to see his affectionate spouse and the baby, ere he retired to his own apartment.
CHAPTER XCVII.
CARLTON HOUSE.
We are now about to relate an incident which, at present, may appear to have little to do with the thread of our narrative, but which, we can assure our readers, will hereafter prove of immense importance in the development of the tale.