"I suppose you could be a doctor if you pleased; but walking the hospitals is not a particularly pleasant occupation. Then there is another opening--why not try the Civil Service?" You would rather freshen up at this. You would have read in a comic paper, that never will be nameless, that Government clerks were like the fountains in Trafalgar Square (old style), "because they played from ten to four." "Well, yes," you would return. "I don't think I should mind that so much. It would be rather fun to go to Paris as an _attaché_." "I'm afraid I couldn't quite manage that, my dear boy," your fond parent would respond. "They don't pay _attachés_ at first, and so you would have to be satisfied with the War Office or the Admiralty instead of the Foreign Office." "All right, Pater," you would say, and leave the matter in the hands of the elder generation. Then your father would write to any Cabinet Minister of his acquaintance about things in general and nothing in particular, and would add a "P.S." asking for a nomination. In due course a reply would come granting the sweet boon. A test examination would follow of a perfunctory character, and an intimation of your appointment would be the sequel. Then you would take up your daily residence in Pall Mall or Whitehall for twenty or thirty years and then retire as a Knight or a C.B. Thus was done in the comparatively long ago. But now-a-days another plan has to be adopted. Instead of entering the Civil Service as a junior join it as a senior. As a preliminary you must get into the House. This is simpler than having to cram and then stand the racket of a competitive examination. Any one under certain conditions can enter Parliament, but the Civil Service Commissioners bar the entrance to the Government offices with equally certain regulations. For the sake of argument let me assume that you are in the House. You have stood for Slocum-on-the-Marsh, and have persuaded the Slocum-on-the-Marshers to elect you. As an M.P. you are duly qualified to accept any appointment under the Crown when the Government ask you. The best plan is to think of an office and then add one to it--yourself. "Why not the Public Squander Department?" you ask yourself. To which you reply with a second question, "Why not?" Yes, the P. S. D. is not half bad. But how to get into it. Well, why not take up Milestones? All the world knows that the Public Squander Department are responsible for all the Milestones not under the superintendence of the county authorities. Go for the Milestones. Begin with a question. Learn that the Milestones in the Old Bath Road are in many cases illegible. Request the Secretary of the Public Squander Department to inform you when the inscription of such and such a Milestone was last restored? The official will fence the query. Probably his Private Secretary, considering you a new man, will have failed to furnish the necessary information. You must expect a little retardation at the first set-off.