“Well; so I am,” said he.  “And so are we all.  You will be astonished when you see His Majesty.”

“Is he so much older?” I asked.

“He has aged five years in one,” said he.

We talked presently (after looking through my lodgings again, to see if all were as it should be, and after my thanking Mr. Chiffinch for the pains he had put himself to), first of France and then of Rome.  He shewed himself very astute when we spoke of Rome.

“I do not wish to pry,” he said, “but I hope to God’s sake that the Holy Father hath given you a commission to His Royal Highness, to bid him hold himself more quiet.  He will ruin all, if he be not careful.”

“Why; how is that?” said I.

“Ah! you ecclesiastics,” he cried—­“for I count you half an one at least, in spite of your pretty cousin—­you are more close than any of us!  Well; I will tell you as if you did not know.”

He put his fingers together, in his old manner.

“First,” said he, “he is Lord High Admiral again.  I count that very rash.  We are Protestants, we English, you know; and we like not a Papist to be our guard-in-chief.”

“You will have to put up with a Papist as a King, some day,” said I.

“Why I suppose so—­though I would not have been so sure two years ago.  But a King is another matter from an High Admiral.”

“Well; what else has he done?” I asked.

“He hath been readmitted to the Council, in the very face of the Test Act too.  But it is how he bears himself and speaks that is the worst of all.  He carries himself and his religion as openly as he can; and does all that is in His power to relieve the Papists of disabilities.  That is very courageous, I know; but it is not very shrewd.  God knows where he will stop if once he is on the throne.  I think he will not be there long.”

I said nothing; for indeed my instructions were on those very points; and I knew them all as well as Chiffinch, and, I think, better.

He spoke, presently, of myself.

“As for you, Mr. Mallock, I need not tell you how high you are in favour here. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice”; and he waved his hands at the rich rooms.

“His Majesty is very good,” I said.

“His Majesty hath a peerage for you, if you want it.  He said he had made too many grocers and lickspittles into knights, to make you one.”

I cannot deny that to hear that news pleased me.  Yet even then I hesitated.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I at last, “if you mean what you say, I have something to answer to that.”

“Well?” said he.

“Let me have one year more of obscurity.  I may be able to do much more that way.  In one year from now I shall be married, as I told you.  Well, when I have a wife she must come to town, and make acquaintances; and so I shall be known in any case.  Let me have it then, if I want it—­as a wedding gift; so that she shall come as My Lady.  And I will do what I can then, in His Majesty’s service, more publicly.”