And yet, there were we, day after day, made to go over and over these old vouchers, comparing them with ledgers and store-books, and all sorts of references, for no earthly good whatever! It is thus, that much time is wasted and unrequired labour paid for in the public service, when, by judiciously doing away with unnecessary work, the number of clerks might be economised, and their labour consequently better remunerated. You can't get men to become interested in unprofitable work. My comrades in the Obstructor General's Office were jolly and cheerful enough, and old Smudge not too exacting and fault-finding. After a little experience, I managed to arrive at the knowledge of the exact amount of work which would satisfy him. If one did more than this, he thought you much too pushing a fellow to belong to his slow, steady- going branch; and if less, why, you were an idle person, not worth your salt. But, the whole thing was very tedious and dry to me. I could, get through Smudge's quantum of accounts easily in half my time:--the rest of my hours hung heavily on my hands. One can't read the _Times_ all day, you know. The very obligation, too, to be tied down to a certain routine and chained to a desk, galled me. I could have accomplished ten times the amount of labour I did, if I had been allowed to do it at my own convenience, and not forced to the ten to four regime. I was always thinking of Min, also, and fretting at her absence--for, she did not come back to Saint Canon's for months after I got my appointment. My whole thoughts were filled with her image. The difficulty of my position with regard to her and her mother likewise troubled me. So, taking all these points into consideration, my office life was not a happy one,--though, if matters had been arranged more comfortably for me, touching the future, I would have cheerfully put up with more temporary annoyances than I actually suffered, slaving on indefinitely under Smudge's rule. As it was, I couldn't. I used to dream of Min all day, imagining what she might be doing down in the country. I fancied all sorts of things about her. I thought that she would forget me and like some one else better, knowing how joyfully Mrs Clyde would encourage any wooer whose presence might tend to make her turn from me. The worst of it was, too, that I had no one to sympathise with me. I could not, exactly, go round asking people to "pity the sorrows of a disappointed lover!" As Lamartine sings in his "Tear of Consolation":-- "Qu'importe a ces hommes mes freres Le coeur brise d'un malheureux? Trop au-dessus de mes miseres, Mon infortune est si loin d'eux!" How could I implore sympathy? Would you have given me yours? I would be almost ashamed to tell how I was in the habit of "mooning away my time," thinking of Min--when, the first novelty of the office having worn off, I found my duties so wearisome and easily got through, that I had nothing to keep me from thinking!