She and I Volume II Part 6

In a fortnight, he told me that he considered me "safe" to pa.s.s "the board"--an a.s.surance which I was by no means sorry to hear; as, independently of my discovering that "cramming" is not the most interesting mode of beguiling one's time, I received at the end of the same period, through the kind exertions of the vicar on my behalf, a nomination to the Obstructor General's Office.

The official letter conveying the gratifying intelligence of my nomination, directed me, also, to present myself on the following Tuesday morning, at "ten of the clock" precisely, before the examining board of commissioners--taking care to furnish myself with a duly authenticated certificate of baptism and one testifying my moral character; neither of which had I any difficulty in procuring.

Thus provided, and crammed, "up to the nines," by my temporary pedagogue, I put in my due appearance, as required, to have my attainments tested:--in order that I might be reported upon as fit, or not, to undertake the very onerous duties of the office to which I had been probationally appointed.

I was quite hopeful as to the result, for my "crammer" again impressed me at the last moment with his entire conviction that I would pa.s.s with eclat; while, my good friend the vicar, who had given me the most flaming of testimonials, cheered me up with his cordial wishes for my success, as did also dear little Miss Pimpernell, in her customary impulsive way.

"Down along in Westminster, not far from the side of the wa--ter," as is sung in the eloquent strains of a certain "Pretty Little Ratcatcher's Daughter," who was known and admired "all around that quar--ter," stands the not-by-any-means-gloomy-looking mansion of Her Majesty's Polite Letter Writer Commissioners--over whose fell door so many trembling candidates for situations under Government might, very reasonably, trace the mystic characters of the inscription surmounting Dante's _Inferno_--"Lasciate ogni speranza doi ch' entrate!"

Arrived here, and mounting a series of stairs until I had reached the topmost floor, to which I was directed by the janitor, I found myself at last in a long, low, gothic-lighted room--whose windows had commanding views of the grand hotel over the way, the roof of the Abbey alongside, and the police station in the centre of the problematical "green" in front.

Here, the compet.i.tors could reflect--while awaiting their papers, or when chewing the cud of contentment or despair at the contemplation of the same--on what might be the vicissitudes of their lot in the event of their failure or success.

At a given signal, fifty-nine other persons and myself, all doomed to compete for six vacancies in the much-desired office of the Obstructor General, were ushered, like schoolboys, into another and inner room, opening out of the former and garnished with rows of green-baize-covered tables, running from end to end.

This room seemed to bring back to me a host of old recollections; and, each moment, I was expecting to see the ghost of "Old Jack," my head instructor at Queen's College School in days of yore, and hear him exclaiming in his well-remembered stentorian tones--"Boy Lorton--you are detained for inattention! Stop in and write five hundred lines!"--and, then, to see him come swooping down the room upon me, with wrath and majesty seated on his bald brow and his gown flowing behind him.

He generally took such enormous strides, when moved with a sudden desire to punish some lost soul, whom he might suspect of the heinous crimes of idleness or "cribbing"--both unforgivable offences in his calendar--that the aforesaid gown, I recollect, seemed frequently to float over his head--forming in conjunction with his square college cap, alias "mortar board," a regular "nimbus," like that surrounding the heads of the saints in old pictures.

The Polite Letter Writer Commissioners--or rather, their executive-- were, I must confess, much quieter in their demeanour, moving about as stealthily as if they were engaged in any number of Gunpowder, or Rye House Plots, or other conspiracies.

Perhaps, you say, they were much too orderly in their proceedings for me?

Well, I don't think so, exactly; still, _I_ do not believe much in the justice and impartiality of the Vehmgerichte, Parliamentary committees, the Berlin police, the prefects of the past empire, Monsieur Thiers's communistic courts-martial, or of the New York Erie Ring--nor, indeed of any representative, or, other body, which hides its deeds and decisions under a cloak of secrecy!

Be that as it may, the method of the examiners did not tend to rea.s.sure us, speaking collectively of the sixty of us who now awaited judgment-- fifty-four of whom were pre-ordained to failure, and _knew it_, which certainly militated against any chance of their looking upon the preparations for their torture with a lenient eye.

At regular intervals along the green-baize tables were deposited small parcels of stationery, consisting of a large sheet of sanguinary blotting-paper, a quire or so of foolscap, a piece of indiarubber, an attenuated lead-pencil, a dozen of quill pens, with others of Gillott's or Mitch.e.l.l's manufacture, and an ink bottle--the whole putting one in mind of those penny packets of writing requisites that itinerant pedlars, mostly seedy-looking individuals who "have seen better days,"

pester one's private house with in London; and which they are so anxious to dispose of, that they exhibit the greatest trust in your integrity, leaving their wares unsolicited behind them, and intimating that they will "call again for an answer."

The present parcels were also "left for answers"--answers on which depended our future prospects and position!

Seated in state, on a sort of dais in the centre of the room, was a courteous and urbane personage of affable exterior. He was further hedged in with a species of outwork of the sentry-box formation, which concealed his lower limbs from view:--a precaution evidently designed to protect him from the fierce onslaught of some demented candidate--who, when suffering from the continuous effect of "examination on the brain,"

might have been suddenly goaded to frenzy by a string of unsolvable questions.

This gentleman entreated us, as a first step, to "stand by" the forms-- like a crew of sailors about to make sail; and then, in the words of the Unjust Steward, to "sit down and write quickly," each in front of one of the little piles of stationery.

We obeyed this injunction as well as we were able, although many of us, unaccustomed to rapid penmans.h.i.+p, found the latter part of the order rather difficult of accomplishment. It was all very well to say, "Sit down and write quickly!" but, what, if we had nothing to say, and didn't know how to say it?

Ah!

Under the tutelage of the superintending chief, lesser satellites ministering occasionally to our wants in the matter of pens and paper, and distributing fresh series of questions to us every hour or so, we were for three days put through the paces of what the examiners held to be "the requirements of a sound liberal English education"--I, certainly, should, however, have thought but "small potatoes," as the Americans say, of the general attainments of the lot of us in this respect, if all we possessed were tested on the occasion, or even a t.i.the of our knowledge!

If one could have set aside one's own interest in the contest, the scene in that long low room of the Polite Letter Writer Commissioners was amusing enough.

You should only have watched the anxious glances we bent around on each other, after first scanning over the printed lists supplied to puzzle us! How we cordially sympathised with the hopeless vacant stare of ignorance, proceeding from some tall, bearded individual, well on in his twenties--who looked far more fit to shoulder a musket and go to the wars, like our French friend, "Malbrook," than to be thus condemned again to school-boy duties! How we glared, also, at any brilliant compet.i.tor, whose down-bent head seemed too intent on mastering the subject set before him; and, whose ready pen appeared to be travelling over paper at far too expeditious a rate for our chances of winning the clerkly race! With what horror and despair, we confronted a "poser"

that was placed to catch us napping:--how we jumped at anything easy!

Taking note of the examiner's watchfulness; the hushed silence that reigned around, only broken by the scribbling sound of busy workers and the listless shuffling of the feet of others, who, having, as they sanguinely thought, completely mastered their tasks, had nothing further to occupy their time until "the gaudy pageant" should be "o'er"--the whole thing, really, was school all over again!

I believed, every moment, that I was back again once more in the well- remembered "B" schoolroom at Queen's--where and when Old Jack, promenading all in his glory, caused me often to "tremble for fear of his frown," like that "Sweet Alice," whom Ben Bolt loved and basely deserted.

To still further carry out the romantic resemblance, we were allowed an hour at noon for rest and refreshment each day that the examination lasted.

Many, undoubtedly, devoted this interval steadily to recruiting the wants of the inner man; but, one could well fancy them bursting off madly into some boyish game, with all the ardour that their previous application may have generated--the shouts of the Westminster scholars in the adjacent yard bearing out the illusion.

_I_ spent my play-hour in wandering through the cla.s.sic shades of the Abbey next door, looking over the memorial tablets of "sculptured bra.s.s and monumental marble," erected to the honour of departed worthies:--I wished, you know, to keep my mind in a properly reflective state for the afternoon hours of examination--history and other abstruse studies being usually then set.

A few mad, hair-brained youths, however, I was sorry to observe, beguiled the interregnum with billiards and beer; but, these, I'm delighted to add, got handsomely plucked for their pains--as they richly deserved. You and I, you know, never drink beer or play billiards. Oh, dear no! Never, on my word!

As all things must come to an end at some time or other, the examination proved no exception to the rule, duly dragging its weary length along until it came to a dead stop.

A week afterwards I learnt my fate. I had not pa.s.sed with the "eclat"

my tutor prophesied; but, I contrived to get numbered amongst those fortunate six who secured their appointments out of the entire sixty that competed.

I only got through "by the skin of my teeth," the crammer said; still, that was quite sufficient for me. I had, therefore, you see, no cause of quarrel with the examining board. They had, it is true, made me out to have only barely come up to the required standard in French--a language with which I had been familiar from childhood; but, they compensated for this, by according me full marks in book-keeping--which I had been totally ignorant of a week before the examination; and, I only answered the questions asked me therein through dint of the wholesale theoretical cramming of my tutor!

So much for the value of the ordeal.

I maintain that, in many instances, these compet.i.tive examinations are quite uncalled-for, and a great mistake.

In the one I was engaged in, for example, two-thirds of the candidates were men who had already been employed in the public service as "writers"--some for years. Now, if these were held competent to fulfil the duties of office life, as they must have been, or they would not be thus employed, surely, it was unnecessary, as well as unfair and absurd, to subject them to test the school-boy acquirements, that many had forgotten, which offered no real proof of their apt.i.tude to be public accountants.

And, secondly, I firmly believe that compet.i.tion neither produces the best clerks--out of those who thus initiate their official life, and who might not have been engaged beforehand, as writers or otherwise; nor does the system, as I've already said, afford any guarantee for a sound education on the part of those examined.

The Polite Letter Writer Commissioners, I have no doubt, do their duty as well as they can, in that position and state of life to which an enthusiastic reformer, backed up by an Act of Parliament, has called them; but, at the present time, ignorance has every facility afforded it for riding rampant over their "crucial" tests, while "crammers" drive, with the greatest glee, coaches and sixes by the score through their most zealous enactments.

If the compet.i.tive theory is to be the basis of our civil service organisation, it should be extended to all cla.s.ses and grades in official life; and not be limited merely to the junior clerk at the bottom of the red-tape ladder.

Let every one, up to the under-secretaries of state and members of the cabinet even, be examined and tested and docketed in due order of merit--in the same way as the Chinese conduct their mandarin school--and distribute variously coloured b.u.t.tons to graduates of different degrees, letting "the best man win," in accordance with the old motto of the now extinct "Prize Ring."

Perhaps, if ministers were subjected to some such ordeal--and there might be a good deal in it if it were only properly conducted--they would find themselves fit to grapple with more vital matters than political pyrotechnics, which are only fired off to suit popular clamour; and, were they better acquainted with history, especially that of their own country--as they would be, if forced to "cram" like the commissioners' candidates--they would hesitate before sacrificing the old renown of England, and the interests which she has consolidated with her blood and treasure for generations, to suit a b.a.s.t.a.r.d diplomacy invented by the "peace-at-any-price" party of patriotism-less patriots!

The vicar, naturally, was delighted with my success; and, as for little Miss Pimpernell, she was quite jubilant.

"Dear me, Frank!" she said, when I took the letter announcing my appointment to show her the same evening I received it. "I am _so_ glad--I can't tell you how glad--my dear boy! Why, we will have you and Miss Min soon setting up house-keeping! Did I not tell you that things would be certain to come right, if you only waited, and worked, and hoped? Never you go against Keble again, my boy."

I promised her I would not. I should have liked also to have spoken to Mrs Clyde immediately, as Min was still away, and I could hear nothing of her; but, she had left town, too, and so I was unable to carry out my wish--which, indeed, Miss Pimpernell had strongly advised against my doing. The latter counselled me to wait awhile before I renewed my offer; and, it was just as well, perhaps, that Mrs Clyde _was_ away. I might, you know, have put an end to all my hopes in a jiffey, if circ.u.mstances had not prevented my hurrying matters again to a crisis!

It was very sad for me not to be able to see Min, and hear _her_ congratulations; but still, that could not be at present; and, in the meantime, other folk took interest in me.

It is wonderful, how people living in a small suburb, or remote country village, are obliged to submit to having their actions canva.s.sed, and the incidents of their private life made public property of, by other persons with whom they may have nothing whatever in common!

For instance, what earthly concern was it of Mr Mawley's, whether I chose to accept a Government appointment, or not? Why should _he_ have the impertinent officiousness to lecture me when he heard of my joining the Obstructor General's Office; and, _I_, be forced to submit to his remarks thereon?

He doubted, forsooth, whether I was really suited to the work! He "hoped" I would "get steadier," he was pleased to say; and, he was also kind enough to express the desire for me to learn that "deference towards my superiors," with which I was, at present, according to his idea, "sadly unacquainted!"

Indeed! It was just like his presumption.