"LOVE LIES BLEEDING."
What is my guilt that makes me so with thee?
Have I not languished prostrate at thy feet?
Have I not lived whole days upon thy sight?
Have I not seen thee where thou hast not been;
And, mad with the idea, clasp'd the wind,
And doated upon nothing?
Although Mr Mawley had expressed such a disparaging opinion anent my
capabilities for official work, I do not think I made such an
inefficient clerk on the whole.
I did not mulct my country of any portion of the hours appointed for my
labour, pleading Charles Lamb's humorous excuse, that, if I _did_ come
late, I certainly made up for it "by going away early!" On the
contrary, my attendance was so uniformly regular, that it attracted the
notice of the chief of my room, getting me a word of commendation.
Praise from such a quarter was praise indeed, as the individual in
question was one of the old order of clerks, stiff, prosaic and crabbed
to a degree--who looked upon all the new race of young men that now
entered the service as so many sons of Belial. "Their ways" were not
"his ways;" and, their free and easy manners, and absence of all that
wholesome awe of chiefs which had been customary in his day, proved,
beyond doubt, that official life in general, and that of _his_
department in particular, was decidedly "going to the devil!"
He lived in the office, I verily believe; coming there at some unearthly
hour in the morning, and leaving long after every one else had sought
their homes.
The messengers had been interrogated on the subject of his arrival, but
they protested that they always found him installed at his usual desk,
no matter how early they might set about clearing out the room in
anticipation of the ordinary routine of the day; while, as for the time
of his departure, nobody could give any reliable information respecting
that!
The hall-porter, who remained in charge of the establishment when
business was over, might, perhaps, have afforded us some data on which
we could have decided the mooted point, but he was a moody, taciturn
personage, who had never been known to utter a word to living man--
consequently, it was of no use appealing to him.
One of the fellows reported, indeed, that once having to return to the
office at midnight, in search of his latch-key which he had forgotten in
his office-coat, and without which he was unable to obtain admittance to
his lodgings, he found old "Smudge,"--as we somewhat irreverently termed
the chief,--who was particularly neat and nice in his handwriting--
working away; minuting and docketing papers, just as if it had been
early in the afternoon. It was his firm persuasion, _he_ said, that
Smudge never went away at all, but remained in the office altogether,
sleeping in a waste basket, his head pillowed on the debris of destroyed
correspondence!
Of course we did not really believe in the latter part of this
statement; still, it was quite feasible, I'm sure, now that I think it
over.
His habit every morning was to draw a great black line, punctually as
the clock chimed half-past ten, across the middle of the attendance--
book, which stood on a bracket near the door, handy for everybody coming
in; the clerks having to sign it on entering, inserting the exact time
at which they put in an appearance. Our normal hour was supposed to be
ten, the half-hour being only so much grace allowed for dilatory persons
delayed by matters "over which they had no control"--although few they
were who did not take advantage of it.
Why the old gentleman drew this line, none could tell; for, no bad
results ensued to sinners who signed after its limitation--many of those
who were invariably late, being subsequently duly promoted in their
turn, as vacancies occurred.
But, the practice appeared to give Smudge great satisfaction. He,
probably, took some malicious pleasure in scoring up the delinquencies
of his staff, mentally consigning the underliners, most likely, to
irretrievable ruin, both in this world and the next!
I, as I've already said, was an exception to this rule.
I must explain, however, that my good hours did not proceed from any
intense wish on my part to ingratiate myself with the chief. They were
rather owing to the fact, that the omnibus I specially patronised,
generally arrived in town from the remote shades of Saint Canon's by ten
o'clock sharp--a result usually obtained through hard driving, and on
account of an "opposition" conveyance being on the road.
Smudge, nevertheless, took the deed for the will; and he complimented me
accordingly, much to my surprise.
"Ha! Mr Lorton," he growled to me one morning, on my coming in just as
the hour was striking. "You'll be picking up the worm soon, you come so
uncommonly early! Never once down below the line--good sign! good sign!
But, it won't last, it won't last,"--he added thinking he had spoken
too graciously.--"All of you begin well and end badly; and _you_ won't
be any better than the rest!"
He then hid himself behind a foolscap folio, to signify that the
audience was ended.
It was quite an event his saying so much to me, his conversation being
mostly confined to finding fault with us in the briefest monosyllables
of the most pungent and forcible character; for, he seldom uttered a
word, save with reference to some document that might be submitted for
his approval and signature.
During the entire time that I remained under his watchful leadership, he
never spoke to me, but once again in this gracious manner. Indeed, when
I mentioned the circumstance to all the fellows, they expressed
considerable doubt as to his having spoken to me so at all, ascribing my
account of our interview to the richness of my imagination; but, he
really did say what I have related. I am rather proud of the fact than
not.
My comrades as a body were a nice, gentlemanly set; and we got on very
well together.
As a matter of course, we had one especial individual who was commonly
regarded as the butt of the room--a good-natured, heavy man, with a dull
face and a duller comprehension; but, he seemed proud and pleased always
when singled out as a mark for our chaff:--he took it as an honour, I
think, ascribing our fun to delicate attention.
We had also a "swell," who was as irreproachable in his dress as
Horner:--I remember, the whole office felt flattered when his name once
appeared in the list of those attending the Queen's Drawing-room; while,
his fashionable doings, as recorded in the columns of the _Morning
Post_, caused our room to be envied by every other division of "the
branch."--Young and old, "swell" and butt not excepted--we consorted on
the friendliest of footings. We were knit together in the closest bonds
of brotherhood; and were in the habit of looking down upon all other
departments as not to be compared to that, of which our room, was, in
our opinion, the acknowledged head.
Generally speaking, men belonging to the public service are more
gregarious, and stick to one another in a greater degree, imitating the
clanship of Scotchmen and Jews, than those occupied in any other walk in
life.
Professionals move, as a rule, in petty cliques; city people find their
interests clash too much for them to associate in such harmony as do
those engaged in Government offices. They may be said, certainly, to
form a clique, and to have strong party interests also; but then, their
clique is so large a one that the prominent features of narrow-
mindedness and utter selfishness, which distinguish smaller coteries,
are lost in its more extended circle; while, its interests are self-
centred, its members having nothing to fear or expect from the outside
public.
And yet, with all that good fellowship and staunch fidelity, as a
class--when personal pique, and what I might call "promotion jealousy,"
does not interfere to mar the warm sympathies that exist between the
units of this officially happy family--Government clerks are a very
discontented set of men, grumbling from morning until night at their
position, their prospects, their future.
Really, when I first joined, I thought them all so many Lady Dashers in
disguise. I could hardly believe that such cheerful fellows should be
at heart so morbidly exacerbated!
They do not, it is true, grumble at those of their own standing in the
service; nor do they try to out-manoeuvre their fellows of the same
department; but, third-class men are jealous of those in the second-
class, second-class men of lucky "seniors," hankering after their shoes;
and all, alike envious, both individually and collectively, of other
branches, unite in one compact band of martyrs against the encroachments
and tyrannies of higher officialdom--considering chiefs, secretaries of
state, and such like birds of ill-omen, as virtual enemies and
oppressors, with whom they are bound to prosecute a perpetual guerilla
warfare:--a warfare in which, alas! they are sadly over-matched.
Smith does not mind in the least--that is, as far as human nature can be
magnanimous--that Robinson, of his own office, should be preferred
before him, and raised to a superior grade in advance of his legitimate
turn. He may, undoubtedly, believe it to bear the semblance of "hard
lines" to himself personally, that he was not chosen instead; still, he
puts it all down to Robinson's wonderful luck, and his own miserable
fatality, bearing his successful comrade no ill-will in consequence.
But, let Jones, of another branch, be placed in the vacancy;--just hear
what Smith says then!
Words would fail to express his sentiments in the matter.
Jones, he considers, is a nincompoop, who has fed all his life on "flap-
doodle," which, as you may be aware, Lieutenant O'Brien told Peter
Simple was the usual diet of fools. Jones is a man _totally_ devoid of
all moral principle. How "the authorities" could ever have selected
such a person to fill so responsible a post is more than he, Smith, or
any one else, can understand! And, besides, how unfair it was, to take
a clerk from another and different office--and one essentially of a
lower character, Smith believes--and put him "over our heads in this
way," as he says, when rehearsing his wrongs and those of his official
brethren before a choice audience of the same--from which the chief is
the only absentee:--it was, simply disgraceful!
Smith thinks he "will certainly resign after this," and--he doesn't!
He goes on plodding round in his Government mill, grumbling and working
still to the end of his active life, when superannuation or a starvation
allowance comes, to ease his cares in one way and increase them in
another! And, to do him scant justice, he really _does_ work manfully,
at a lesser rate of pay, and with fewer incentives to exertion through
hopes of advancement, than any other representative person under the
sun--I do not care to what class or clique he may belong!
He is the miserable hireling of an ungrateful country, from his cradle
to his grave, in fact.
It is all very well for people unacquainted with the machinery of these
offices to talk about the idleness of Government clerks generally; and
joke at the threadbare subject of "her Majesty's hard bargains."
No doubt, some places are sinecures, and that a larger number of clerks
are employed in many offices than there is work for them to do; but, we
must not go altogether to the foot of the ladder to remedy this state of
things!
Why do not such ardent reformers as Mr Childers, and men of his stamp,
cut down their own salaries first, before they set about pruning those
of poor ill-paid subordinates?
I can tell them, for their private satisfaction, that, if they did so,
the onlooking public would have a much stronger belief in the honesty of
their reformatory zeal than it at present possesses!
It is not the "little men" that swell the civil list, as the vicar told
me before I saw it for myself, but, the "big wigs."
These are the ones who fatten on the estimates, the root of the evil
lying concealed under the snugly-cushioned fauteuils of cabinet
ministers and their pampered placeholders and hunters--not, beneath the
straight-backed horsehair chairs of miserable clerks. It is unmanly
thus for giants to gird at pigmies!
I would advise all the clerks in the various Government offices to form
a "union," in order to obtain redress for their wrongs; and to "strike,"
if needs be--you know, that strikes are all the rage now!
You demur to my argument? It would be a conspiracy, you say?
Dear me! You are quite wrong, I assure you. A conspiracy is only a
conspiracy so long as it is unsuccessful. When it is triumphant, it is
known no longer by that term!
Then, it is styled a "Revolution," or a "Restoration," or a "Grand Party
Triumph," as the case may be. Just in the same way, is a man a
"traitor," or a "patriot," who tries to serve his country, according to
his lights, as he is either defeated in his purpose, or victorious.
Besides, when men thus work together in a body, their words and deeds,
although identically the same, are regarded in a different light to the
words and deeds of mere individuals. In the one case they may be grand
and glorious; in the other, they are stigmatised, perhaps, as
insignificant, and, indeed, often criminal.
Witness, how a robber on a large scale, such as a privateersman
confiscating the goods of an innocent merchant, or a chancellor of the
exchequer putting his hand into a poor taxpayer's pocket, is held up in
history to the admiration and honour of posterity; while, a petty thief,
who may steal the watch of Dives, or a starving wretch, who snatches a
loaf out of a baker's shop, gets sent to the treadmill--_their_ actions
being only chronicled in the police news of the day.
Or, again, look at your colossal murderer, like the Kaiser "Thanks to
Providence," when he prosecuted the invasion of a neighbouring country
the other day, in defiance of his kingly word--as published in a public
proclamation, bearing his signature.
He sacrificed thousands of lives in furtherance of his own ambition;
but, he is a "conqueror," bless you! A hero, to whom men bow the knee
and cry, "Ave, Caesar!"--Your puny villain, on the other hand, who only
cuts one unfortunate throat, is hung!
"Circumstances alter cases," runs the saying:--it should more properly
be, the light in which we view them--_that_ makes all the difference, my
dear sir, or madam!
Let the Government clerks strike, I say. "Frappez et frappez fort," as
the Little Corporal used to express it; that is, if they are unable to
get their grievances adjusted without some such extreme measure--of
which there does not seem to be much likelihood at present, considering
the reformatory tendencies of Jacks in office.
A strike, however, would soon bring the latter to reason, and show
whether these subordinates were worth keeping on, or not!
You don't believe it?
Ah! just wait and see!
Fancy, the consternation at Carlton House Terrace, the dismay in Downing
Street, some fine morning, when no clerks were forthcoming!
Imagine the tons of correspondence awaiting answers, the acres of
accounts to be audited, the minutes that would _not_ be made, the
"submissions" that could _not_ go forward, the files that should have
been docketed, and initialled, and stowed away uselessly till doomsday;
and, that must, instead, remain untouched, uncared for!
The Secretary of State might want valuable statistics, to answer some
obstinate inquiring member in the House that very day, but, nobody could
prepare them--to his default; and so, the inquiring member might make a
cabinet question of it, and defeat the Government!
The general commanding at the autumn manoeuvres might, perhaps, be in
urgent need of footwarmers for the regiments under his charge; but, he
couldn't get them, as no permanent clerk would be at the War Office to
countersign his order!
The channel fleet might all need refitting; but, none of them would be
able to go into dock, as the Admiralty gentlemen--who only knew when
their bottoms were last scraped--were not at their posts!
In fact, every department--the Colonies, the Foreign Office, and each
one else, would be topsy turvey; because, only the high sinecurists, who
never did anything but sign their names to documents prepared by "those
useless Government clerks," would be present to conduct the business of
the country; and, _they_ would not have the remotest idea how to set to
work, you know!
The "Control Department" might, certainly be called on for help in the
emergency; and then, we would probably have some more "queer things of
the service" for a short time.
But, it couldn't last. The whole official machinery would come to a
dead stop.
You would then see the ardent reformers at their wits' ends; while, the
honourable person who keeps the purse-strings of the ministry would be
down on his marrow bones--entreating the ill-used and recalcitrant
seceders to return to their employment, when "all would be forgiven;"
and begging them, at the same time, to accept the increase to their
salaries which they had demanded, as a token of his sincere regard and
esteem!
Before I became one of the staff of the Obstructor General's Office, I
had not given the position of Government clerks a thought, excepting to
look down upon them generally--as I have previously remarked, and as,
indeed, most people are in the habit of doing who are unconnected with
the service.
Now, however, that I was one of them, I was filled with the most
thorough corps feeling. Their ills were my ills; their hopes my hopes;
and, such thoughts as I have noted were continually passing through my
mind.
This is the case with most that are similarly employed.
I like men to believe in the special calling or profession they
follow:--I do not think much of those who run down their trade.--The
latter are usually bad workmen, you'll find.
If I were a boot-black, to-morrow, I would, I am certain, lean to the
delusion that the polishing of pedal integuments was the noblest sphere
in life!
Indeed, I have known many more extraordinary conversions than mine.
I've seen one of the most brutal and bloodthirsty of warriors settle
down into an earnest preacher of the gospel. I have heard a prize-
fighter lecture on the atomic theory; and, I am acquainted with a
violent radical demagogue "of the deepest dye," who, by means of a nice
berth and a snug salary, has been turned into the most conservative of
county magnates--looking upon all his former proceedings with horror,
and a virtuous amazement that he could ever have been so led astray!
So, you need not be surprised at my thus changing my sentiments. In
addition, I was new to the service; and, "new brooms sweep clean," we
are told--although, the special work of the room in which I was placed
at the office was not by any means of an interesting character. In
fact, it was rather the reverse, you will say, when I tell you what it
consisted in.
Some eight of us were engaged from ten to four o'clock every day, six
mortal hours, in checking a lot of old accounts, and bills, that had
been paid and settled years before.
There was no benefit to be derived by the country, even if we _did_
detect an error of calculation, which was rarely the case; for, the
money would not be refunded, be never-so-many minutes made of the
incident--the parties concerned being commonly scattered all over the
globe, and, if appealed to, would probably reply that they knew nothing
now about the circumstance, and cared less, most likely.
And yet, there were we, day after day, made to go over and over these
old vouchers, comparing them with ledgers and store-books, and all sorts
of references, for no earthly good whatever!
It is thus, that much time is wasted and unrequired labour paid for in
the public service, when, by judiciously doing away with unnecessary
work, the number of clerks might be economised, and their labour
consequently better remunerated.
You can't get men to become interested in unprofitable work.
My comrades in the Obstructor General's Office were jolly and cheerful
enough, and old Smudge not too exacting and fault-finding. After a
little experience, I managed to arrive at the knowledge of the exact
amount of work which would satisfy him. If one did more than this, he
thought you much too pushing a fellow to belong to his slow, steady-
going branch; and if less, why, you were an idle person, not worth your
salt.
But, the whole thing was very tedious and dry to me. I could, get
through Smudge's quantum of accounts easily in half my time:--the rest
of my hours hung heavily on my hands.
One can't read the _Times_ all day, you know. The very obligation, too,
to be tied down to a certain routine and chained to a desk, galled me.
I could have accomplished ten times the amount of labour I did, if I had
been allowed to do it at my own convenience, and not forced to the ten
to four regime.
I was always thinking of Min, also, and fretting at her absence--for,
she did not come back to Saint Canon's for months after I got my
appointment.
My whole thoughts were filled with her image. The difficulty of my
position with regard to her and her mother likewise troubled me.
So, taking all these points into consideration, my office life was not a
happy one,--though, if matters had been arranged more comfortably for
me, touching the future, I would have cheerfully put up with more
temporary annoyances than I actually suffered, slaving on indefinitely
under Smudge's rule.
As it was, I couldn't.
I used to dream of Min all day, imagining what she might be doing down
in the country.