little game I'd make my letters uncommonly interesting reading to him; and
if the style suited him, I'd see that he got a little leisure in the
penitentiary to copy them and impress them on his mind. Do you mean to say
that you don't even discharge them for it?" said Mr. Ketchum, "I never
heard anything like it!"

"One could discharge the culprit easily enough; the trouble is that his
successor or successors would do exactly the same thing," replied Sir
Robert. "When the Barons rose, they neglected to provide a remedy for an
unforeseen nuisance, and I suppose this literary partnership of Master &
Servant, Limited, will always exist. I wrote a note once to Beazely (my
man), addressed to myself, and told him that if he disapproved of the
Conservative tone of my correspondence, as was likely, seeing that he was
a Radical, I would make an effort to get at Dilke or Bright, with a view
to an _occasional_ note at least. The envelope had been resealed, I saw
when it reached me, but Beazely had no more expression in his face than
the Sphinx. My letters, however, were not tampered with for about a week."

Mrs. Ketchum senior became fluent in her amazement: "How perfectly
dreadful! Good gracious! What did you do about your husband's letters? The
idea of sharing his letters with a servant!"

She was addressing Mrs. Sykes, who said very cheerfully in reply, "Oh,
there was never anything in his letters, except warnings to put the
servants at board-wages before I went away, and look to expenditures, and
not ask him for any more money soon. I didn't mind much. I was rather
ashamed of the spelling,--that was all. Poor dear Guy never could spell,
and I never read anything so dull as his letters,--the same thing over and
over again, till it hardly seemed worth while to open them, only for
knowing what he was up to, or when he was coming. How my poor sisters did