s. The way things
are managed now, a man has no time to attend to his own private
business. Suppose I think of buying a piece of land, and want to go
out and look at it, or suppose any one of you gentlemen were here
and thought of buying a piece of land and wanted to go out and look
at it, what are you going to do about it? You don't want to go on
Sunday, and when are you going to go?"

Not one of the other gentlemen had ever thought of buying a piece of
land, nor had they any reason to suppose that they ever would
purchase an inch of soil unless they bought it in a flower-pot; but
they all agreed that the way things were managed now there was no
time for a man to attend to his own business.

"But you can't expect John J. Laylor to do anything," said the
Shipwreck Clerk.

However, there was one thing which that gentleman always expected
John J. Laylor to do. When the clerk was surrounded by a number of
persons in hours of business, and when he had succeeded in
impressing them with the importance of his functions and the
necessity of paying deferential attention to himself if they wished
their business attended to, John J. Laylor would be sure to walk
into the office and address the Shipwreck Clerk in such a manner as
to let the people present know that he was a clerk and nothing else,
and that he, the Registrar, was the head of that department. These
humiliations the Shipwreck Clerk never forgot.

There was a little pause here, and then Mr. Mathers remarked:

"I should think you'd be awfully bored with the long stories of
shipwrecks that the people come and tell you."

He hoped to change the conversation, because, although he wished to
remain on good terms with the subordinate officers, it was not
desirable that he should be led to say much against John J. Laylor.

"No, sir," said the Shipwreck Clerk, "I am not bored. I did not come
here to be bored, and as long as I have charge of this office I
don't intend to be. The long-winded old salts who come here to
report their wrecks never spin out their prosy yarns to me. The
first thing I do is to let them know just what I want of them; and
not an inch beyond that does a man of them go, at least while I am
managing the business. There are times when John J. Laylor comes in,
and puts in his oar, and wants to hear the whole story; which is
pure stuff and nonsense, for John J. Laylor doesn't know anything
more about a shipwreck than he does about--"

"The endemies in