Page:The Yellow Book - 06.djvu/94

 began to take notice. The elderly stranger—for he was both gaunt and elderly—nay, as he looked at him longer he saw he was old—oh so very old! And one long white tuft of hair hung down on his wrinkled forehead from under his top hat,—the stranger squatted on the seat opposite him, produced a note-book and a pencil—a blue pencil too!—and leaning forward, with a fiendish grin, said, "Now I'm going to tick off all you fellows—all you Secretaries—right back from the days of Henry the Seventh! "

The Secretary fell back helplessly in his seat. Terror-stricken, he strove to close his ears against the raucous voice that was already rattling off those quaint old Tudor names he remembered having read on yellowing parchment; but all was of no avail. The stranger went steadily on, and each name as read was ruthlessly scored out by the unerring blue pencil. The pace was tremendous. Already they were in the Commonwealth; past flew the Restoration like a racehorse—the blue pencil wagged steadily like a nightmare—Queen Anne and her coffee-houses,—in a second they were left far behind; and as they turned the corner and sped down the straight of the Georgian era, the Secretary sweated, a doomed man. The gracious reign of Victoria was full in sight—nay, on the stranger s lips was hovering the very name of Fladgate—Fladgate whom the Secretary could himself just remember, a doddering old pensioner—when the train shivered and squealed into St. James s Park Station. The Secretary flung the door open and fled like a hare, though it was not his right station. He ran as far as the Park itself, and there on the bridge over the water he halted, mopped his brow, and gradually recovered his peace of mind. The evening was pleasant, full of light and laughter and the sound of distant barrel-organs. Before him, calm and cool, rose the walls of the India Office, which in his simple way he had always considered a dream in stone. Beneath his feet a whole family of ducks circled