when a servant had given me notice, my custom was to go immediately to the door, and, after paying
my respects, to take up the coach and two horses very carefully in my hands (for, if there were six horses,
the postillion always unharnessed four,) and place them on a table, where I had fixed a movable rim
quite round, of five inches high, to prevent accidents. And I have often had four coaches and horses at
once on my table, full of company, while I sat in my chair, leaning my face towards them; and when I was
engaged with one set, the coachmen would gently drive the others round my table. I have passed many
an afternoon very agreeably in these conversations. But I defy the treasurer, or his two informers (I will
name them, and let them make the best of it) Clustril and Drunlo, to prove that any person ever came
to me INCOGNITO, except the secretary Reldresal, who was sent by express command of his imperial
majesty, as I have before related. I should not have dwelt so long upon this particular, if it had not been
a point wherein the reputation of a great lady is so nearly concerned, to say nothing of my own; though
I then had the honour to be a NARDAC, which the treasurer himself is not; for all the world knows, that
he is only a GLUMGLUM, a title inferior by one degree, as that of a marquis is to a duke in England; yet
I allow he preceded me in right of his post. These false informations, which I afterwards came to the
knowledge of by an accident not proper to mention, made the treasurer show his lady for some time
an ill countenance, and me a worse; and although he was at last undeceived and reconciled to her, yet
I lost all credit with him, and found my interest decline very fast with the emperor himself, who was,
indeed, too much governed by that favourite.