Seeing the poor man in this distressed condition, the writer begged him to be comforted, and not to take the matter so much to heart; but the indignant Radical took the matter very much to heart, and refused all comfort whatever, bouncing about the room, and, whilst his spectacles flashed in the light of four spermaceti candles, exclaiming, “It will be a job—­a Tory job!  I see it all, I see it all, I see it all!”

And a job it proved, and a very pretty job, but no Tory job.  Shortly afterwards the Tories were out, and the Whigs were in.  From that time the writer heard not a word about the injustice done to the country in not presenting him with the appointment to -; the Radical, however, was busy enough to obtain the appointment, not for the writer, but for himself, and eventually succeeded, partly through Radical influence, and partly through that of a certain Whig lord, for whom the Radical had done, on a particular occasion, work of a particular kind.  So, though the place was given to a quack, and the whole affair a very pretty job, it was one in which the Tories had certainly no hand.

In the meanwhile, however, the friendly Radical did not drop the writer.  Oh, no!  On various occasions he obtained from the writer all the information about the country in question, and was particularly anxious to obtain from the writer, and eventually did obtain, a copy of a work written in the court language of that country, edited by the writer, a language exceedingly difficult, which the writer, at the expense of a considerable portion of his eyesight, had acquired, at least as far as by the eyesight it could be acquired.  What use the writer’s friend made of the knowledge he had gained from him, and what use he made of the book, the writer can only guess; but he has little doubt that when the question of sending a person to—­was mooted in a Parliamentary Committee—­which it was at the instigation of the writer’s friend—­the Radical on being examined about the country, gave the information which he had obtained from the writer as his own, and flashed the book and its singular characters in the eyes of the Committee; and then of course his Radical friends would instantly say, “This is the man! there is no one like him.  See what information he possesses; and see that book written by himself in the court language of Serendib.  This is the only man to send there.  What a glory, what a triumph it would be to Britain, to send out a man so deeply versed in the mysterious lore of—­as our illustrious countryman; a person who with his knowledge could beat with their own weapons the wise men of—­ Is such an opportunity to be lost?  Oh, no! surely not; if it is, it will be an eternal disgrace to England, and the world will see that Whigs are no better than Tories.”