Really, when I first joined, I thought them all so many Lady Dashers in disguise. I could hardly believe that such cheerful fellows should be at heart so morbidly exacerbated! They do not, it is true, grumble at those of their own standing in the service; nor do they try to out-manoeuvre their fellows of the same department; but, third-class men are jealous of those in the second- class, second-class men of lucky "seniors," hankering after their shoes; and all, alike envious, both individually and collectively, of other branches, unite in one compact band of martyrs against the encroachments and tyrannies of higher officialdom--considering chiefs, secretaries of state, and such like birds of ill-omen, as virtual enemies and oppressors, with whom they are bound to prosecute a perpetual guerilla warfare:--a warfare in which, alas! they are sadly over-matched. Smith does not mind in the least--that is, as far as human nature can be magnanimous--that Robinson, of his own office, should be preferred before him, and raised to a superior grade in advance of his legitimate turn. He may, undoubtedly, believe it to bear the semblance of "hard lines" to himself personally, that he was not chosen instead; still, he puts it all down to Robinson's wonderful luck, and his own miserable fatality, bearing his successful comrade no ill-will in consequence. But, let Jones, of another branch, be placed in the vacancy;--just hear what Smith says then! Words would fail to express his sentiments in the matter. Jones, he considers, is a nincompoop, who has fed all his life on "flap- doodle," which, as you may be aware, Lieutenant O'Brien told Peter Simple was the usual diet of fools. Jones is a man _totally_ devoid of all moral principle. How "the authorities" could ever have selected such a person to fill so responsible a post is more than he, Smith, or any one else, can understand! And, besides, how unfair it was, to take a clerk from another and different office--and one essentially of a lower character, Smith believes--and put him "over our heads in this way," as he says, when rehearsing his wrongs and those of his official brethren before a choice audience of the same--from which the chief is the only absentee:--it was, simply disgraceful! Smith thinks he "will certainly resign after this," and--he doesn't! He goes on plodding round in his Government mill, grumbling and working still to the end of his active life, when superannuation or a starvation allowance comes, to ease his cares in one way and increase them in another! And, to do him scant justice, he really _does_ work manfully, at a lesser rate of pay, and with fewer incentives to exertion through hopes of advancement, than any other representative person under the sun--I do not care to what class or clique he may belong! He is the miserable hireling of an ungrateful country, from his cradle to his grave, in fact.