In a fever of expectation, I hung over the banisters of the geometrical staircase, watching for his arrival.

While I was thus occupied, my nerves “screwed up,”—­almost to cracking, Mr. Wallis’s office-door was thrown open, and I beheld that very gentleman’s round, pleasant physiognomy, embrowned by his travels, staring me full in the face.  I really lost my equilibrium at the apparition.

“Oh!—­it’s you, is it,” cried he.  “Where’s my rascal?”

“He’s not come yet, sir,” I replied.

“That fellow’s never at hand when I want him--I’ll cashier him by ___.” 
He slammed to his own door, and—­opened it again immediately.

“Timmis come?” demanded he.

“No, sir; I don’t think he’ll be here for an hour.”

“True—­I’m early in the field; but what brings you here so soon?—­some mischief, I suppose.”

“I’m always early, sir, for I live hard by.”

“Ha!—­well—­I wish—.”

“Can I do anything for you, sir?” I enquired.

“Why, that’s a good thought,” said he, and his countenance assumed its usually bland expression.  “Let me see—­I want to send my carpet-bag, and a message, to my housekeeper.”

“I can do it, sir, and be back again in no time,” cried I, elated at having an opportunity of obliging the man whom I had really some cause to fear, in the critical situation in which his nephew’s thoughtlessness had placed me.

In my eagerness, however, and notwithstanding the political acuteness of my manoeuvre, I got myself into an awful dilemma.  Having received the bag, and his message, I walked off, but had scarcely descended a dozen stairs when he recalled me.

“Where the devil are you going?” cried he.

“To your house, sir,” I innocently replied.

“What, do you know it, then?” demanded he in surprise.

Here was a position.  It was a miracle that I did not roll over the carpet-bag and break my neck, in the confusion of ideas engendered by this simple query.

I could not lie, and evasion was not my forte.  A man or boy in the wrong can never express himself with propriety; an opinion in which Quinctilian also appears to coincide, when he asserts—­

“Orator perfectus nisi vir bonus esse non potest.”

I therefore summoned up sufficient breath and courage to answer him in the affirmative.

“And when, pray, were you there?” said he.

“Yesterday, sir, your nephew asked me to come and see him.”

“The impudent little blackguard?” cried he.

“I hope you ain’t angry, sir?”

“Angry with you?—­no, my lad; you’re an active little chap, and I wish that imp of mine would take a pattern by you.  Trot along, and mind you have ‘a lift’ both ways.”

Off I went, as light as a balloon when the ropes are cut.

I executed my commission with dispatch, and completely won the favour of Mr. Wallis, by returning the money which he had given me for coach-hire.