DURING OFFICE-HOURS.
The "Office of H.M. Stannaries" is in a small back street in the
neighbourhood of Whitehall. What H.M. Stannaries were was known to but
very few of the initiated, and to no "externs" at all. Old Mr. Bult,
who, from time immemorial had been the chief-clerk of the office,
would, on being interrogated as to the meaning of the word or the
duties of his position, take a large pinch of snuff, blow the scattered
grains off his beautifully got-up shirt-frill, stare his querist
straight in the face, and tell him that "there were certain matters
of a departmental character, concerning which it was not considered
advisable to involve oneself in communication with the public at
large." The younger men were equally reticent. To those who tried to
pump them, they replied that they "wrote things, you know; letters,
and those kind of things," and "kept accounts." What of? Why, of the
Stannaries, of course. But what were the Stannaries? Ah, that was going
into a matter of detail which they did not feel themselves justified
in explaining. Their ribald friends used to say that the men in the
Stannaries Office could not tell you what they had to do, because
they did nothing at all, or that they did so little that they were
sworn to secrecy on receiving their appointments, lest any inquisitive
Radical member, burning to distinguish himself before his constituents
in the cause of Civil Service reform--a bray with which the dullest
donkey can make himself heard--should rise in the House, and demand an
inquiry, or a Parliamentary Commission, or some of those other dreadful
inquisitions so loathsome to the official mind.
However, no matter what work was or was not done there, the Stannaries
Office was a fact, and a fact for which the nation paid, and according
to the entries in the Civil Service estimates, paid pretty handsomely.
For there was a Lord Commissioner of Stannaries, at two thousand
a-year, and a secretary at one thousand, and a private secretary
at three hundred, and four-and-twenty clerks at salaries ranging
from one to eight hundred, besides messengers and office-keepers.
It was a well-thought-of office to; the men engaged in it went into
good society, and were recognised as brother officials by the lofty
bureaucrats of the Treasury and the Foreign Office--great creatures,
who looked upon Somerset House and the Post Office as tenanted by
the sons of peers' butlers, and who regarded the Custom House as a
damp place somewhere on the Thames, where amphibious persons known as
"tide-waiters" searched passengers' baggage. But it was by no means
_infra dig_. to know men in the Stannaries; and that department of
the public service annually contributed a by no means small share
of the best dancers and amateur performers of the day. "Only give
us gentlemen," Mr. Branwhite, the secretary, would say in his first
official interview with a newly-appointed Lord Commissioner--for the
patronage of his office was vested in the Lord Commissioner of the
Stannaries, who was a political functionary, and came in and went out
with the Government--"only give us gentlemen; that's all I ask. We
don't require much brains in this place, and that's the truth; but we
do want birth and breeding." And on these points Mr. Branwhite, who
was the son of an auctioneer at Penrith, and who combined the grace
of Dr. Johnson with the geniality of Dr. Abernethy, was inexorable.
The cry was echoed everywhere throughout the office. "Let's have
gentlemen, for God's sake!" little Fitzbinkie, the private secretary,
would say, adding, with a look of as much horror as he could throw
into his eyeglass--you never saw his eyes--"there was a fellow here
the other day, came to see my lord. Worthington--you've heard about
him--wonderful fellow at the Admiralty, great gun at figures, and
organisation, and that kind of thing; reformed the navy almost, and so
on; and--give you my honour--he had on a brown shooting-jacket, and
a black-silk waistcoat, give you my word! Frightful, eh? Let's have
gentlemen, at any price."
And the prayer of these great creatures was, to a large extent,
answered. Most of the men in the Stannaries Office were
pleasant, agreeable, sufficiently educated, well-dressed, and
gentlemanly-mannered. Within the previous few years there had been a
Scotch and an Irish Lord Commissioner, and each of them had left traces
of his patronage in the office: the first in the importation of two or
three grave men, who, not finding work enough to do, filled up their
leisure by reading statistics, or working out mathematical problems;
the last, by the appointment of half-a-dozen roistering blades, who
did very little of the work there was to do, and required the help
of a Maunders' "Treasury of Knowledge," subscribed for amongst them,
to enable them to do what they did; but who were such good riders
and such first-rate convivialists that they were found in mounts and
supper-parties for two-thirds of the year. The Irish element was,
however, decidedly unpopular with Mr. Branwhite, the secretary, a
cold-blooded, fish-like man, dry and tasteless, like a human captain's
biscuit, who had no animal spirits himself, and consequently hated
them in others. He was a long, thin, melancholy-looking fiddle-faced
sort of a man, who tried to hide his want of manner under an assumed
_brusquerie_ and bluntness of speech. He had been originally brought
up as a barrister, and owed his present appointment to the fact of
his having a very pretty wife, who attracted the senile attentions
and won the flagging heart of the Earl of Lechmere, who happened to
be Lord Commissioner of the Stannaries when Sir Francis Pongo died,
after forty years' tenure of the secretaryship. Lord Lechmere having,
when he called at Mrs. Branwhite's pretty villa in the Old Brompton
lanes, been frequently embarrassed by the presence of Mr. Branwhite,
that gentleman's barristerial practice being not sufficient to take him
often to the single chamber which he rented in Quality Court, Chancery
Lane, thought this a favourable opportunity to improve the Branwhite
finances, in this instance at least without cost to himself, and of
assuring himself of Mr. Branwhite's necessitated absence from the Old
Brompton villa during certain periods of the day. Hence Mr. Branwhite's
appointment as secretary to H.M. Stannaries. There was a row about it,
of course. Why did not the promotion "go in the office"? That is what
the Stannaries men wanted to know, and what they threatened to get
several members of Parliament to inquire of the Financial Secretary to
the Treasury, who replied on Stannaries matters in the Lower House.
_The Official Chronicle_, that erudite and uncompromising advocate
of the Government service, came out with a series of letters signed
"Eraser," "Half-margin," and "Nunquam Dormio;" and a leader in which
Lord Lechmere was compared to King David, and Mr. Branwhite to Uriah
the Hittite, the parallel in the latter case being heightened by the
writer's suggestion that each had been selected "for a very warm
berth." But the authorities cared neither for official remonstrances
nor press sarcasms. They had their answer to the question why the
promotion did not go in the office. Who was the next in rotation?
Mr. Bult, the chief-clerk. Was Mr. Bult competent in any way for the
secretaryship? Would the gentlemen of the Stannaries Office like to
see their department represented by Mr. Bult? Certainly not. Very
well, then, as it was impossible, after Mr. Bult's lengthened service,
during which his character had been stainless, to pass him by, and
place any of his juniors over his head, the only course was to seek for
Sir Francis's successor in some gentleman unconnected with the place.
This was the way in which Mr. Branwhite obtained his appointment. Lord
Lechmere's party went out of office soon after, and Lord Lechmere
himself has been dead for years; but Mr. Branwhite held on through the
_régimes_ of the Duke of M'Tavish and Viscount Ballyscran, and was
all-powerful as ever now while Lord Polhill of Pollington was Lord
Commissioner. What was thought of him, and, indeed, what was thought
and said pretty plainly about most official persons and topics, we
shall learn by looking into a large room on the ground-floor of the
office known as the Principal Registrar's Room.
The Principal Registrar's Room must by no means be confounded with the
Registry, which was a very different, and not a very choice place,
where junior clerks got their hands into Stannaries work by stamping
papers and covering their fingers with printers'-ink. The Principal
Registrar's Room was appropriated to the Principal Registrar, and three
of the best-looking assistants he could get hold of. The gentleman
seated at the writing-table in the centre of the room, and reading
_The Morning Post_, is the Principal Registrar, Mr. Courtney. He sits
habitually with his back to the light, so that you cannot see his
features very distinctly--sufficiently, however, to make out that he is
an old, in reality, a very old man, made up for a young one. He must
have been of fair complexion and good-looking at one time, for his
capitally-made wig is red in colour, and though his perfectly-shaven
cheeks are mottled and pulpy, his features are well-cut and
aristocratic. His throat, exposed to view through his turn-down collar,
is old and wrinkled, reminding one of a fowl's neck; and his hands are
soft and seemingly boneless. So much as can be seen of his legs under
the table reminds one of Punch's legs, exhibited by that "godless old
rebel" in front of his show: the knees knock together, and the feet
turn inwards towards each other with helpless imbecility. The only
time that Mr. Courtney exhibits any great signs of vitality is in the
evening at the Portland Club, where he plays an admirable game of
whist, and where his hand is always heavily backed. Though he confesses
to being "an old fellow," and quotes "_Me, nec foemina nec puer_," with
a deprecating shrug of the shoulders, he likes to hear the adventures
of his young companions, and is by no means inconveniently straitlaced
in his ideas. He has a comic horror of any "low fellows," or men who do
not go into what he calls "sassiety;" he regards the Scotch division
of the office as "stoopid," and contemplates the horsiness and loud
tone of the Irish with great disfavour. He has, he thinks, a very good
set of "boys" under him just now, and is proportionately pleasant and
good-tempered. Let us look at his "boys."
That good-looking young man at the desk in the farthest window is Paul
Derinzy, only son of our friend the Captain, resident at Beachborough.
The likeness to his father is seen in his thin straight-cut features,
small lithe figure, and blue-black hair. The beard movement had just
been instituted in Government offices, and Paul Derinzy follows it so
far as to have grown a thick black moustache and a small pointed beard,
both very becoming to his sallow complexion and Velasquez type of face.
He is about five-and-twenty years of age, and has an air of birth and
breeding which finds him peculiar favour in his Chief's eyes.
In his drooping eyelids, in his _pose_, in his outstretched arms, and
head lying lazily on one side, there was an expression of languor that
argued but ill for the amount of work to be gotten out him in any
way, and which proclaimed Mr. Paul Derinzy to be one of that popular
regiment, "The Queen's Hard Bargains." But what of that? He certainly
did his office credit by his appearance; there was very seldom much
work to be done, and when there was, Paul was so popular that no one
would refuse to undertake his share. That man opposite, for instance,
loved Paul as his brother, and would have done anything for him.
The man opposite is George Wainwright. He is four or five years
older than Paul, and of considerably longer standing in the office.
In personal appearance he differs very much from his friend. George
Wainwright stands six feet in height, is squarely and strongly built,
has a mass of fair hair curling almost on to his shoulders, and wears a
soft, thick, fair beard. His hands are very large and very white, with
big blue veins standing out on them, and his broad wrists show immense
power. His eyes are large and prominent, hazel in colour, and soft in
expression; he has a rather long and thick nose, and a large mouth,
with fresh white teeth showing when he smiles. He is smiling now, at
some remark made by the third assistant to the Principal Registrar, Mr.
Dunlop, commonly called "Billy Dunlop," a pleasant fellow, remarkable
for two things, imperturbable good-humour, and never letting anyone
know where he lived.
"What are you two fellows grinning at?" asks Paul Derinzy, lazily
lifting his head and looking across at them.
"I'm grinning at Billy's last night's adventures," replies George
Wainwright. "He went to the Opera, and supped at Dubourg's."
"Horrible profligate! Alone?"
"So likely!" says Billy Dunlop. "All right, though; I mean, quite
correct. Only Mick O'Dwyer with me."
"Mick O'Dwyer at the Opera!" says Paul in astonishment. "Why, he always
swears he has no dress-clothes."
"No more he has; but I lent him some of mine--a second suit I keep
for first nights of Jullien's Concerts, and other places where it is
sure to be crammed and stivy. They fitted Mick stunningly, and he
looked lovely in them; but he couldn't get my boots on, and he had to
go in his own. There were lots of our fellows there, and they looked
astonished to see Mick clothed and in his right mind; and at the back
of the pit, just by the meat-screen there, you know, we met Lannigan,
the M.P. for some Irish place, who's Mick's cousin. He didn't recognise
him at first; then when Mick spoke he looked him carefully all over,
and said: 'You're lovely, Mick!' Then his eyes fell on the boots;
he turned to me with a face of horror, and muttered: 'Ah Billy, the
brogues spoil the lot!'"
The two other men laughed so loudly at this story that Mr. Courtney
looked up from his newspaper, and requested to know what was the
joke. When he heard it he smiled, at the same time shaking his head
deprecatingly, and saying:
"For my part, I confess I cannot stand Mr. O'Dwyer. He is a perfect
Goth."
"Ah Chief, that's really because you don't know him," said Wainwright.
"He's really an excellent fellow; isn't he, Billy?"
"If Mick had only a little money he would be charming," said Dunlop;
"but he hasn't any. He's of some use to me, however; I've had no
occasion to consult the calendar since Mick's been here. He borrows
half-a-crown of me every day, and five shillings on saints'-days,
and----"
"Hold on a minute, Billy," said Paul Derinzy; "if you lent Mick your
clothes, you must have taken him home--to where you live, I mean; so
that somebody has found out your den at last. What did you do? swear
Mick to secrecy?"
"Better than that, sir; I brought the clothes down here, and made Mick
put 'em on in his own room. No, sir, none of you have yet struck on my
trail. Far in a wild, unknown to public view, From youth to age Mr.
William Dunlop grew."
"Haven't you boys solved that mystery yet?" asked Mr. Courtney smiling,
and showing a set of teeth that did the dentist credit.
"Not yet, Chief; we very nearly had it out last week," replied Paul.
"When was that?"
"After that jolly little dinner you gave us down at Greenwich. You
drove home, you know; we came up by rail. I suppose Quartermaine's
champagne had worked the charm; but the lord of William's bosom
certainly sat very lightly on its throne, and he was, in fact, what the
wicked call 'tight.' At the London Bridge Station I hailed a hansom,
and Billy got in with me, saying I could set him down. Knowing that
Billy is popularly supposed to reside in a cellar in Short's Gardens,
Drury Lane, I told the driver to take us a short cut to that pleasant
locality. Billy fell asleep, but woke up just as we arrived in Drury
Lane, looked round him, shouted: 'This will do!' stopped the cab, and
jumped out. Now, I thought, I've got him! I told the cabman to drive
slowly on, and I stepped out and dodged behind a lamp. But Billy was
too much for me: in the early dawn I saw him looking straight at me,
smiting his nose with his forefinger, and muttering defiantly: 'No, you
don't!' So eventually I left him."
"Of course you did. No, no, Chief; William is not likely to fall a
prey to such small deer. He will dissipate this mystery on one great
occasion."
"And that will be----?"
"When he gets his promotion. When the edict is promulgated, elevating
William to the senior class, he will bid you all welcome to a most
choice, elegant, and, not to put too fine a point on it, classical
repast, prepared in his own home."
"Well, if we're to wait till then, you'll enjoy your classic home, or
whatever you call it, for a long time unencumbered with our society,"
said Derinzy. "Who's to have the next vacancy--Barlow's vacancy, I
mean; who's to have it, Chief?"
"My dear boy," said Mr. Courtney, with a shoulder-shrug, "you are aware
that I can scarcely be considered _au mieux_ with the powers that
be--meaning Mrs. Branwhite--and consequently I am not likely to be
taken into confidence in such matters. But I understand, I have heard,
quite _par hazard_," and the old gentleman waved his double glasses
daintily in the air as he pronounced the French phrase, "that Mr.
Dickson is the selected--person."
"D--n Mr. Dickson!" said Paul Derinzy.
"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Dunlop; "my sentiments entirely, well and
forcibly put. A job, sir, a beastly job. 'John Branwhite, Jobmaster,'
ought to be written on the Secretary's door; 'neat flies' over
deserving people's heads, and 'experienced drivers;' those scoundrels
that he employs to spy, and sneak, and keep the fellows up to their
work. No, sir, no chance for my being put up; as the party in the
Psalms remarks, 'promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the
west.'"
"No, Billy, from the south-west this time," said Paul Derinzy.
"Dickson's people have been having Branwhite and his wife to dine in
Belgrave Square; and our sweet Scratchetary was so delighted with Lady
Selina, and so fascinated by the swell surroundings, that he has been
grovelling ever since: hence Dickson's lift."
"I have noticed," said Mr. Courtney, standing up and looking around
him with that benevolent expression which he always assumed when about
to give utterance to an intensely-unpleasant remark, "I have noticed
that when a--point of fact, a cad--tries to get into sassiety on which
he has no claim for admission, he invariably selects the wrong people.
What you just said, my dear Paul, bears out my argument entirely. This
man Branwhite--worthy person, official position, and that kind of
thing; no more knowledge of decent people than a Hottentot--struggles
to get into sassiety, and who does he get to introduce him? Dickson,
brewer-man, malt and hops and drugs, and blue boards with 'Entire,'
and that kind of thing. Worthy person in his way, and married Lady
Selina Walkinshaw, sister of Lord Barclay; but as to sassiety--very
third-rate, God bless my soul, very third-rate indeed!"
"Well, I don't know any swells," said Billy Dunlop, "and I don't think
I want to. From what I've seen of 'em, they're scarcely so convivial
as they might be. Not in the drinking line; I don't mean that--they're
all there; but in the talking. And talking of talking, Mr. Wainwright,
we've not had the pleasure of hearing your charming voice for the last
quarter of an hour. Has it come off at last?"
"Has what come off, Billy?" asked George Wainwright.
"The amputation. Has our father the eminent, &c, at last performed the
operation and cut off our tongue? and is it then in a choice vial,
neatly preserved in spirits-of-wine, covered over with a bit of a
kid-glove, tied down with packthread, and placed on a shelf between a
stethoscope and a volume of 'Quain's Anatomy': is that it?"
"Funny dog!" said George Wainwright, looking across at him. "I often
wonder why you stop here, Billy, at two-forty, rising to three-eighty
by annual increments of ten, when there's such a splendid future
awaiting you in the ring. That mug of yours is worth a pound a-week
alone; and then those charming witticisms, so new, so fresh, so
eminently humorous----"
"Will you shut up?"
"How they would fetch the threepenny gallery! Why don't I talk? I do
sometimes in your absence; but when you're here, I feel like one of
'those meaner beauties of the night, which poorly satisfy our eyes;'
and when you begin I ask myself: 'What are you when the moon shall
rise?'"
"Shut up, will you? not merely your mouth, but your inkstand,
blotting-book, and all the rest of the paraphernalia by which you wring
an existence out of a too-easily-satisfied Government. You seem to have
forgotten it's Saturday."
"By Jove, so it is!" said George Wainwright.
"Yes, sir," continued Mr. Dunlop; "like that party in Shakespeare, who
drew a dial from his poke, and said it was just ten, and in an hour
it would be eleven, I've just looked at my watch and find that in ten
minutes it will be one o'clock, at which hour, by express permission
of her Majesty's Ministers, signed and sealed at a Cabinet Council, of
which Mr. Arthur Helps was clerk, the gentlemen of H.M. Stannaries are
permitted on Saturdays to--to cut it. That is the reason, odd as it may
seem, why I like Saturday afternoon. Mr. Tennyson, I believe, knew some
parties who found out a place where it was always Saturday afternoon.
Mr. W. Dunlop presents his compliments to the Laureate, and would be
obliged for an introduction to the said place and parties."
"And what are you going to do with yourself to-day, Billy?"
"I am going, sir, if I may so express myself without an appearance of
undue vanity, where Glory waits me. But I am prepared to promise, if
it will afford any gentleman the smallest amount of satisfaction, that
when Fame elates me, I will at once take the opportunity of thinking of
THEE!"
"And where is Glory at the present moment on the look-out for you,
William?"
"Glory, sir, in the person of Mr. Kemp, the Izaak Walton of the day,
will be found awaiting me in a large punt, moored on the silver bosom
of the Thames, off the pleasant village of Teddington, a vessel
containing, item two rods, item groundbait and worms for fishing, item
a stone-jar of--water! A most virtuous and modest way of spending the
afternoon, isn't it? I wish I could think it was going to be spent
equally profitably by all!" and Billy Dunlop made a comic grimace in
the direction of Paul Derinzy, and then assuming a face of intense
gravity, took his hat off a peg, nodded, and vanished.
"Well, goodbye, my dear boys," said Mr. Courtney, coming out from
behind the partition where the washing-stand was placed--it was a point
of honour among the men to ignore his performance of his toilette--with
his wig tightly fixed on and poodled up under his glossy hat, with his
close-fitting lavender gloves, and with a flower in the button-hole
of his coat; "_au revoir_ on Monday. I'm going down to dear Lord
Lumbsden's little place at Marlow to blow this confounded dust out of
me, and to get a little ozone into me, to keep me up till I get away
to Scotland. _Au revoir_!" and the old boy kissed his fingertips, and
shambled away.
"What are you going to do this afternoon, old man?" asked George
Wainwright, pulling off his coat preparatory to a wash, of Paul
Derinzy, who had been sitting silent for the last ten minutes, now
nervously plucking at his moustache, now referring to his watch, and
evidently in a highly nervous state.
"I don't know exactly, George," Paul replied, without looking up at his
friend. "I haven't quite made up my mind."
"Going to play tennis?"
"No, I think not."
"Going down to the Oval, to have an hour or two with the professionals?
Good day to-day, and the ground's in clipping order."
"No, I think not."
"Well, then, look here. Come along with me: we'll go for a spin as far
as Hendon; come back and dine at Jack Straw's Castle at Hampstead,
where the man has some wonderfully-good dry sherry, which he bought the
other day at a sale up there; and then walk quietly in at night. What
do you say?"
"No, I think not to-day, old fellow."
"Oh, all right," said George Wainwright, after an instant's pause; "I'm
sorry I spoke."
"Don't be angry, George, old boy! You know I'm never so jolly as when
I'm with you, and that there's no man on earth I care for like you,"
said Paul, earnestly; "but I've half-promised myself for this
afternoon, and until I hear--and I expect to hear every moment--I don't
know whether I'm free or not."
"All right, Paul. I daresay I bore you sometimes, old man. I often
think I do. But, you know, I'm five or six years older than you, and I
was the first fellow you knew when you came into the service, through
your people being acquainted with mine, and so I've a natural interest
in you. Besides, you're a young swell in your way, and it does good
to me to hear you talk and mark your freshness, and your--well, your
youth. After thirty, a London man hasn't much of either."
"At it again, are you, George? Why don't you keep a property tub on the
premises? You can't do your old Diogenes business effectively without
it. Or do you want no tub so long as you have me for your butt? Sold
you there, I think. You intended to say that yourself."
"Mr. Derinzy," said George Wainwright gravely, "you must indeed have
lost every particle of respect for me when you could imagine that I
would have descended to a low verbal jest of that nature. Well, since
you won't come, I'll----"
"I never said I wouldn't yet, though I can't expect you to wait any
longer for my decision. I----"
At that moment a messenger entered the room with a letter in his hand.
"For you, sir," he said to Mr. Derinzy; "the boy wouldn't wait to know
if there was an answer."
"All right!" said Paul, opening it hurriedly, with a flushed face.
It had an outer and an inner envelope, both sealed.
"And I may be like the boy, I suppose," said George Wainwright, eyeing
his friend with a curiously mixed expression of interest and pity; "I
needn't wait to know if there's an answer."
"No, dear old George; I can't come with you this afternoon," replied
Paul; and then he looked at the letter again.
It was very short; only one line:
"At the usual place, at three to-day.--DAISY."