 their wills were in
safe keeping, and took it for granted that the office was not to be made better,
who was the worse for it? Nobody. Who was the better for it? All the
sinecurists. Very well. Then the good predominated. It might not be a perfect
system; nothing was perfect; but what he objected to, was, the insertion of the
wedge. Under the Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the
wedge into the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious.
He considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them;
and he had no doubt the Prerogative Office would last our time. I deferred to
his opinion, though I had great doubts of it myself. I find he was right,
however; for it has not only lasted to the present moment, but has done so in
the teeth of a great parliamentary report made (not too willingly) eighteen
years ago, when all these objections of mine were set forth in detail, and when
the existing stowage for wills was described as equal to the accumulation of
only two years and a half more. What they have done with them since; whether
they have lost many, or whether they sell any, now and then, to the butter
shops; I don't know. I am glad mine is not there, and I hope it may not go
there, yet awhile.
    I have set all this down, in my present blissful chapter, because here it
comes into its natural place. Mr. Spenlow and I falling into this conversation,
prolonged it and our saunter to and fro until we diverged into general topics.
And so it came about, in the end, that Mr. Spenlow told me this day week was
Dora's birthday, and he would be glad if I would come down and join a little
pic-nic on the occasion. I went out of my senses immediately; became a mere
driveller next day, on receipt of a little lace-edged sheet of note-paper,
»Favoured by papa. To remind;« and passed the intervening period in a state of
dotage.
    I think I committed every possible absurdity in the way of preparation for
this blessed event. I turn hot when I remember the cravat I bought. My boots
might be placed in any collection of instruments of torture. I provided, and
sent down by the Norwood coach the night before, a delicate little hamper,
amounting in itself, I thought, almost to a declaration. There were crackers in
it with the
