The first promise is easily kept. The sooner a man rises and is out of the house, the sooner he is out of the way of his duns; for an unpaid Austrian employé is continually haunted by his creditors. The second of those two promises he fulfils by habit. Who would not be a swift and expert penman when writing all day and every day? The third no one asks him to break, for no one cares what he writes during all the weary hours of the day; his official secrets, if he has any, are safe from every one’s curiosity. As for the fourth, it is not kept at all. An Austrian employé accepts everything: money and trinkets; playthings for his boy, and gifts for his wife; hams and tongues; opera tickets and theatre stalls—he takes them all; and in return he may help the donor over some slippery pass, by dragging him out of the straight road into the crooked path leading to legal safety and moral dishonesty. Government gets off with its interests somewhat sacrificed; but the gain on one side makes up for the loss on the other. “_Donis semper aperta est_,” is the invisible inscription written on the Austrian office. It is forbidden to give or to receive; and he who gives runs as great a risk as he who receives; but both giver and receiver, running swiftly and keeping time and step together, generally manage to outstrip the stumbling march of the detective. “Do not praise the day till it is over,” says the proverb; and, following the spirit of the adage, the maxim of the employé is, Do not condemn the Austrian Government till you are rid of it: that is, till you are dead. Nay, even then the paternal government steps in, to take care, not of the widows and orphans, but of more precious things; namely, the dead employé’s goods and chattels. Widows and orphans may shift for themselves; goods and chattels must be taken care of. So government sends an officer to take a list of all the employé’s effects remaining, and specially to search for money. In the case of any being found—a case as rare as the sight of a white elephant in Europe—the widow and orphans must give government a part: for government is co-heir whenever there is an official inheritance to be had. Then this same wise and liberal government refuses to grant a pension to the widow or orphan, if a private income of twenty pounds per annum is found among the reliquiæ. If nothing is found, and if the employé has been more than ten years an official, and more than three years in matrimonial bondage, government grants a pension of ten or twenty pounds yearly. If he has served for a less term, or been married for only two years and three quarters, the pension is forfeited.