rnoons," said Mr. J. George Watts,
with a knowing smile.

"No, sir," said the Shipwreck Clerk, emphatically, changing the
crossing of his legs. "A man can't keep grinding on day in and out
without breaking down. Outsiders may say what they please about it,
but it can't be done. We've got to let up sometimes. People who do
the work need the rest just as much as those who do the looking on."

"And more too, I should say," observed Mr. Mathers.

"Our little let-up on Wednesday afternoons," modestly observed Harry
Covare, "is like death--it is sure to come; while the let-ups we get
other days are more like the diseases which prevail in certain
areas--you can't be sure whether you're going to get them or not."

The Shipwreck Clerk smiled benignantly at this remark, and the rest
laughed. Mr. Mathers had heard it before, but he would not impair
the pleasantness of his relations with a future colleague by hinting
that he remembered it.

"He gets such ideas from his beastly statistics," said the Shipwreck
Clerk.

"Which come pretty heavy on him sometimes, I expect," observed Mr.
Mathers.

"They needn't," said the Shipwreck Clerk, "if things were managed
here as they ought to be. If John J. Laylor"--meaning thereby the
Registrar--"was the right kind of a man you'd see things very
different here from what they are now. There'd be a larger force."

"That's so," said Mr. Mathers.

"And not only that, but there'd be better buildings and more
accommodations. Were any of you ever up to Anster? Well, take a run
up there some day, and see what sort of buildings the department has
there. William Q. Green is a very different man from John J. Laylor.
You don't see him sitting in his chair and picking his teeth the
whole winter, while the Representative from his district never says
a word about his department from one end of a session of Congress to
the other. Now if I had charge of things here, I'd make such changes
that you wouldn't know the place. I'd throw two rooms off here, and
a corridor and entrance-door at that end of the building. I'd close
up this door"--pointing toward the Registrar's room--"and if John J.
Laylor wanted to come in here he might go round to the end door like
other people."

The thought struck Harry Covare that in that case there would be no
John J. Laylor, but he would not interrupt.

"And what is more," continued the Shipwreck Clerk, "I'd close up
this whole department at twelve o'clock on Saturday