appreciate higher intellectual employment! I thought, however, my boy, that you looked down on ‘Her Majesty’s hard bargains,’ as poor Government clerks are somewhat unjustly termed?”

“That was, because I thought they were a pack of idlers, doing nothing, and earning a menial salary for it. ‘Playing from ten to to four, like the fountains in Trafalgar Square,’ as Punch declares,” I said.

“Ah!” said the vicar, “that is a mistake, as you will soon find out when you belong to their body. They do work, and well, too. Many of the grand things on which departmental ministers pride themselves—and get the credit, too, of effecting by their own unaided efforts—are really achieved by the plodding office hacks, who work on unrecognised in our midst! Our whole public service is a blunder, my boy. There is no effective rise given in it to talent or merit, as is the case in other official circles. The ‘big men,’ who are appointed for political purposes, get on, it is true; but, the ‘little men,’ who labour from year’s end to year’s end, like horses in a mill, never have a chance of distinguishing themselves. When they are of a certain age, and attain a particular height in their office, they become superannuated, and retire; for, should a vacancy occur, of a higher standing in the public secretariat, it is not given to them—although the training of their whole life may peculiarly fit them for the post! No, it is bestowed on some young political adherent of the party then in power, who may be as unacquainted with the duties connected with the position, as I am ignorant of double fluxions! This naturally disgusts men with the service; and, that is why you generally hear Government offices spoken of as playgrounds for idle youths, who enter them to saunter through life—on the strength of the constituent-influence of their fathers on the seats of budding MP’s.”

“I really thought they never worked,” said I. “There’s Horner, for instance. You don’t suppose, sir, that he confers such inestimable benefit on his country by his daily avocations in Downing Street?”

“Ah, poor Jack Horner!” laughed the vicar; “he’s really not very bright. But, we need not be so uncharitable as to think that he does not do his money’s worth for his money! He writes a beautiful hand, you know; and, I dare say, his mere services as a copying machine are of some value. Government clerks do not all play every day, Frank:—you will, I’m sure, find plenty to do, if you go into office life. I remember, in the time of the Crimean war, that a friend of mine, employed in the Admiralty at Whitehall, used 

 Prev. P 19/132 next