The malcontents were still ungrateful enough to remain unconverted to the department’s point of view. They did not mind being called anything that would befit them; a rose by any name would smell as sweet; but if they had to do more work of a higher responsibility, they wanted correspondingly better pay. If anything, the discontented ones were even more sordid in those days than those who followed later. The department had yet a deal to learn, but it played the game with a sublime indifference to the rules of fairness, and wondered when it was detected cheating. It had not yet learned how to cheat with grace, and by means of forced cards, without the subterfuge being exposed on the instant. That was to come later. They had been so used to submissiveness on the part of the force that they could not think the men would have the courage to persist in their objections now. So they thought to compromise the difference by giving the men yet another title, that of “assistant-sorter,” and putting them on the sorters’ scale, but with a reduced maximum when they should reach the top. Now the only advantage they could afford the men as a solatium in their disappointment was to offer them a maximum more easily attained to by being reduced by five shillings. This was the result of a “revision” made in September 1867. The highest wage a man could now receive was 45s. a week instead of 50s., and the only compensation offered for his deprivation of prospect was an increase of 6d. in the yearly rise, and a very slight increase on the lower scale. So that instead of taking nearly half a lifetime to reach 50s. by twenty-seven yearly instalments, it now took sixteen years to reach 45s. Then after a while they were given the option of remaining on the 50s. maximum at 1s. increments, or the 45s. at 1s. 6d. annual increments. In either case it was like the promise of a copyhold in the moon; at least so the men regarded it, especially as the immediate outlay to the department meant only a dozen shillings or so. But they were compelled to accept the conditions and to take up the duties none the less. Even with an unblemished character, it took perhaps half a lifetime to reach a respectable salary. Consequently many—the stampers, sub-sorters, postmen, and others—had to eke out their meagre income by working at an alternative trade, such as bootmaking, watchmaking, or other odd jobs in the intervals which should ordinarily have been given to sleep and leisure. One man who used to engage in “moving jobs,” he having a little greengrocers business, was constantly late for the afternoon duty. When called on to explain, he gave as his reason that the Post-Office gave him his bread, and he had to employ his spare time elsewhere looking for his cheese. It is a trifling incident, but the reply would have equally well fitted hundreds of others in similar positions.