a little envy, and a somewhat general feeling that Bagwax,
having got to the weak side of Sir John Joram, was succeeding in having
himself sent out as a first-class overland passenger to Sydney, merely
as a job. Paris to be seen, and the tunnel, and the railways through
Italy, and the Suez Canal,--all these places, not delightful to the
wives of Indian officers coming home or going out, were an Elysium to
the post-office mind. His expenses to be paid for six months on the most
gentleman-like footing, and his salary going on all the time! Official
human nature, good as it generally is, cannot learn that such glories
are to be showered on one not specially deserving head without something
akin to enmity. The general idea, therefore, in the office, was that
Bagwax would do no good in Sydney, that others would have been better
than Bagwax,--in fact, that of all the clerks in all the departments,
Bagwax was the very last man who ought to have been selected for an
enterprise demanding secrecy, discretion, and some judicial severity.

Curlydown and Bagwax occupied the same room at the office in St.
Martin's-le-Grand; and there it was their fate in life to arrange,
inspect, and generally attend to those apparently unintelligible
hieroglyphics with which the outside coverings of our correspondence are
generally bedaubed. Curlydown's hair had fallen from his head, and his
face had become puckered with wrinkles, through anxiety to make these
markings legible and intelligible. The popular newspaper, the popular
member of Parliament, and the popular novelist,--the name of Charles
Dickens will of course present itself to the reader who remembers the
Circumlocution office,--have had it impressed on their several
minds,--and have endeavoured to impress the same idea on the minds of
the public generally,--that the normal Government clerk is quite
indifferent to his work. No greater mistake was ever made, or one
showing less observation of human nature. It is the nature of a man to
appreciate his own work. The felon who is made simply to move shot,
perishes because he knows his work is without aim. The fault lies on the
other side. The policeman is ambitious of arresting everybody. The
lawyer would rather make your will for you gratis than let you make your
own. The General can believe in nothing but in well-trained troops.
Curlydown would willingly have expended the whole net revenue of the
post-office,--and his own,--in improving the ma