CHAPTER XVII.
THE WIDOW OF A MINISTER OF FINANCE.
"You are just in time, Arbuthnot, to do me a service," said Dalrymple, looking up from his desk as I went in, and reaching out his hand to me over a barricade of books and papers.
"Then I am very glad I have come," I replied.

"But what confusion is this?
Are you going anywhere ?" "Yes--to perdition.

There, kick that rubbish out of your way and sit down." Never very orderly, Dalrymple's rooms were this time in as terrible a litter as can well be conceived.

The table was piled high with bills, old letters, books, cigars, gloves, card-cases, and pamphlets.

The carpet was strewn with portmanteaus, hat-cases, travelling-straps, old luggage labels, railway wrappers, and the like.