Recollections of the Old Foreign Office

, were in a very tumble-down condition at the time when I entered the office, so much so that, when the adjoining houses at the King Street end of Downing Street and, later, those at the King Street end of Fludyer Street were taken down, the block forming the east end of the Foreign Office had to be shored up, which for many years gave this most important public office a most unsightly, not to say undignified, appearance. (See sketch facing page 18.) There were two main entrances to the office in Downing Street?one was used chiefly by the Secretary of State, the Under Secretaries, and foreign ambassadors, and the other by the clerks and the general public; but there was also a small private entrance from St. James's Park, and a back door in Fludyer Street, which latter was used by the printers and bookbinders, and it is said that a Secretary of State has, on more than one occasion, c 17 given a small despatch bag, addressed to one of Her Majesty's ministers abroad, to a friend who was in pecuniary difficulties, so that he might leave the office by this back door, and thus escape the vigilance of the bailiff who was waiting to meet him at the Downing Street entrance. It was said that this same Secretary of State had a fellow- feeling for his friend, having been, at one period of his life, himself so much " out at elbows" that he gave orders to his butler never to answer a knock at the door or a ring at the bell until he had put up the small chain, hung at the side...