garded by their rightful equals
as something peculiarly privileged and superior.

"My Lord" would have called him a useful man; his friends all described
him as "influential." But he was something greater than either,--he was
a successful man. We are constantly told that the efficiency of our
army is mainly owing to the admirable skill and ability of its petty
officers. That to their unobtrusive diligence, care, and intelligence
we are indebted for all those qualities by which a force is rendered
manageable, and victories are won. Do we not see something very similar
in our Bureaucracy? Is not our Government itself almost entirely in the
hands of "petty officers"? The great minister who rises in his place
in Parliament, the exponent of some grand policy, the author of some
extensive measure, is, after all, little more than the mouthpiece of
some "Mr. Ogden" in Downing Street; some not very brilliant or very
statesmanlike personage, but a man of business habits, every-day
intelligence, and long official traditions,--one of those three or four
men in all England who can say to a minister, "It can't be done," and
yet give no reason why.

The men of this Ogden stamp are, in reality, great influences in a
country like ours, where frequent changes of government require that the
conditions of office should be transmitted through something higher and
more responsible than mere clerks. They are the stokers who keep the
fires alight and the steam up till a new captain comes aboard, and,
though neither commanders nor pilots, they _do_ manage to influence the
course of the ship, by the mere fact that they can diminish the force of
her speed or increase its power without any one being very well aware of
how or wherefore.

Such men as these are great people in that dingy old house, whose frail
props without are more than emblems of what goes on within. Of their
very offices men speak as of the Holy of Holies; places where none
enter fearlessly save secretaries of state, and at whose door inferior
mortals wipe their feet with heart-sinking fear and lowness of spirit,
rehearsing not unfrequently the abject words of submissiveness with
which they are to approach such greatness.

It is curious, therefore, to see one of these men in private life. One
wishes to know how M. Houdin will look without his conjuring-rod, or
what Coriolanus will do in plain clothes; for, after all, he must come
into the world unattended with his belongings,