After I had secured my exemption from military service, and had got over the protracted final examination in the law college, I found that my real troubles in life were only just beginning, for the problem of making a position for myself lay before me. I was now entirely dependent upon my own labours to earn my bread. As I mentioned at the beginning of the book, we had no longer any hope of recovering our confiscated lands, and the little instalments advanced to me periodically out of the revenue of those lands during our lawsuit with the authorities, which lasted fifteen years, were now very irregularly paid. In fact, I was becoming thoroughly disgusted by the fact that we had to make the most humble entreaties to the arrogant officials of the Sultan in order to persuade them to advance the small sums they owed to us. I wished to obtain some appointment, either in the Courts or the Ministry of Justice, but there seemed little chance of my doing so. As I have been endeavouring to show throughout these chapters, the administration in the reign of Abd-ul-Hamid has been the most corrupt that our unfortunate country has ever known. No one, however highly qualified he may be, can get any employment in any Government department unless he is connected with some highly-placed creature of the Sultan, or unless he is able to bribe high officials, or is cunning enough to concoct some grave political charge against others and denounce them to the tyrant at Yildiz Kiosk. Those who do this last service are known as 'Palace spies.' I had no relation in the Sultan's palace who might have obtained a Government appointment for me; and had, of course, no money to lay out in bribery, and so purchase an appointment, while the trade of a spy was entirely repugnant to my feelings. I may be asked why, instead of striving to get official employment, I did not try to find other work. The fact is that official employment is nowadays the only way in Turkey in which persons of any education can earn a livelihood. In order to explain this I must give some account of the nature of officialdom under the Sultan's bureaucracy.