“Good men, and true!” said the Rural Dean, turning over in his hands a bundle of the Oxford postcards. I was turning over in my mind the men to whom I had just bidden farewell. One puzzled me: “Who was the big man with gold spectacles, sitting next O’Brien; hardly spoke a word all the time?” I asked. “Gold spectacles? Oh, old Weights of Slobury; most worthy, but not lively. There is a story of him. It is said that when the new railway was being made through his parish, he one day paid a pastoral visit to the navvies’ huts; and having gained admission to one hut, he talked and read till the master grew weary, and suggested that it was about tea-time. Weights took the hint, and his leave. As he closed the door, the man pointed compassionately over his shoulder at the ponderously retreating figure, and muttered: “‘Theer goos a good navvy--_spiled_.’” “But here, Inspector,” he continued, “here is a postcard that will suit you. You were at Balliol, were you not?” He gave it to me, and it may be anglicised thus: A traveller in Central Africa was surprised and carried off by hostile natives, who brought him before their chief. A drum-head court-martial was held, and sentence of death was speedily passed. But while the executioner was making the necessary preparations, the tribe were ransacking his baggage, and one of them with a shout of joy held up an Oxford blazer of the Balliol pattern. The chief saw it, and his grim features relaxed. In excellent English he said-- “Were you at Balliol? So was I: you may go. Good old Jowett!” (_Abi in pacem: Jowettii, et nostrum, haud immemor._) CHAPTER XIII CHESHIRE “Then there is the County Palatine.” _Merchant of Venice._ Three profitable years I spent in Norfolk, learning my business, and I became weary of exile. When on my appointment I received my instructions from the Secretary, he said that, looking to my experience gained as Inspector of Returns, it was not necessary that I should serve any further apprenticeship: I “need not take up my headquarters in Norfolk.” This in official language meant that as soon as possible I should be given a district of my own; and in my ignorance of official life I took no thought for the morrow. But, as my third year of expatriation began to draw to a close, it occurred to me that the Secretary was not personally interested in me, and that in the Civil Service, as elsewhere, a man who wants promotion must see that he gets it.