"Ah! What is it? " retorted the member, looking shrewdly at him, with his head on one side.
"A secretary's duties are rather difficult to define, perhaps," said Nicholas, considering. "They include, I presume, correspondence."
"Good," interposed Mr. Gregsbury.
"The arrangement of papers and documents—"
"Very good."
"Occasionally, perhaps, the writing from your dictation; and possibly,"—said Nicholas, with a half smile, "the copying of your speech, for some public journal, when you have made one of more than usual importance."
"Certainly," rejoined Mr. Gregsbury. "What else?"
"Really," said Nicholas, after a moment's reflection, "I am not able, at this instant, to recapitulate any other duty of a secretary, beyond the general one of making himself as agreeable and useful to his employer as he can, consistently with his own respectability, and without overstepping that line of duties which he undertakes to perform, and which the designation of his office is usually understood to imply."
Mr. Gregsbury looked fixedly at Nicholas for a short time, and then glancing warily round the room, said in a suppressed voice—
"This is all very well, Mr.—what is your name?"
"Nickleby."
"This is all very well, Mr. Nickleby, and very proper, so far as it goes—so far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. There are other duties, Mr. Nickleby, which a secretary to a parliamentary gentleman must never lose sight of. I should require to be crammed, Sir."
"I beg your pardon," interposed Nicholas, doubtful whether he had heard aright.
"—To be crammed, Sir," repeated Mr. Gregsbury.
"May I beg your pardon again, if I inquire what you mean?" said Nicholas.
"My meaning, Sir, is perfectly plain," replied Mr. Gregsbury, with a solemn aspect. "My secretary would have to make himself master of the foreign policy of the world, as it is mirrored in the newspapers; to run his eye over all accounts of public meetings, all leading articles, and accounts of the proceedings of public bodies; and to make notes of anything which it appeared to him might be made a point of, in any little speech upon the question of some petition lying on the table, or anything of that kind. Do you understand?"
"I think I do, Sir," replied Nicholas.
"Then," said Mr. Gregsbury, "it would be necessary for him to make himself acquainted from day to day with newspaper paragraphs on passing events; such as 'Mysterious disappearance, and supposed suicide of a pot-boy,' or anything of that sort, upon which I might found a question to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Then he would have to copy the question, and as much as I remembered of the answer (including a little compliment about my independence and good sense); and to send the manuscript in a frank to the local paper, with perhaps half a dozen lines of leader, to the effect, that I was always to be found in my place in parliament, and never shrunk
