There is associated with Buckingham Palace a most worthy and useful individual called the ratcatcher.

Everybody can see why in such a vast and generally untenanted barrack, there should be a ratcatcher.

Well, Master Ratcatcher appears on the Estimates for Buckingham Palace just as regularly, as plainly, in as much detail, as my Lord High Chamberlain, Lord Carrington.

There is no reason whatever why a whole evening should not be spent in the discussion of the ratcatcher's salary.

Perhaps the reader may have heard that, in common with many sobered and middle-aged gentlemen, I have had a pre-historic period when I was accused--of course, unjustly--of interfering with the progress of public business.