Hampstead remained nearly a fortnight down at Trafford, returning to Hendon only a few days before Christmas. Crocker, the Post Office clerk, came back to his duties at the same time, but, as was the custom with him, stole a day more than belonged to him, and thus incurred the frowns of Mr. Jerningham and the heavy wrath of the great Æolus. The Æoluses of the Civil Service are necessarily much exercised in their minds by such irregularities. To them personally it matters not at all whether one or another young man may be neglectful. It may be known to such a one that a Crocker may be missed from his seat without any great injury,--possibly with no injury at all,--to the Queen's service. There are Crockers whom it would be better to pay for their absence than their presence. This Æolus thought it was so with this Crocker. Then why not dismiss Crocker, and thus save the waste of public money? But there is a necessity,--almost a necessity,--that the Crockers of the world should live. They have mothers, or perhaps even wives, with backs to be clothed and stomachs to be fed, or perhaps with hearts to be broken. There is, at any rate, a dislike to proceed to the ultimate resort of what may be called the capital punishment of the Civil Service. To threaten, to frown, to scold, to make a young man's life a burden to him, are all within the compass of an official Æolus. You would think occasionally that such a one was resolved to turn half the clerks in his office out into the streets,--so loud are the threats. In regard to individuals he often is resolved to do so at the very next fault. But when the time comes his heart misgives him. Even an Æolus is subject to mercy, and at last his conscience becomes so callous to his first imperative duty of protecting the public service, that it grows to be a settled thing with him, that though a man's life is to be made a burden to him, the man is not to be actually dismissed. But there are men to whom you cannot make their life a burden,--men upon whom no frowns, no scoldings, no threats operate at all; and men unfortunately sharp enough to perceive what is that ultimate decision to which their Æolus had been brought. Such a one was our Crocker, who cared very little for the blusterings. On this occasion he had remained away for the sake of having an additional day with the Braeside Harriers, and when he pleaded a bilious headache no one believed him for an instant. It was in vain for Æolus to tell him that a man subject to health so precarious was altogether unfitted for the Civil Service. Crocker had known beforehand exactly what was going to be said to him, and had discounted it at its exact worth. Even in the presence of Mr. Jerningham he spoke openly of the day's hunting, knowing that Mr. Jerningham would prefer his own ease to the trouble of renewed complaint. "If you would sit at your desk now that you have come back, and go on with your docketing, instead of making everybody else