But to any one of less modest and retiring disposition the severest trial would have been the manner in which the postmasters-general took credit to themselves for improvements which were exclusively his own. It was always "our" surveyors who had been instructed to do this, that, and the other, without the slightest acknowledgment that the instruction had come from Allen, and that it was he who supplied the money to pay and the wit to direct them. Only when the cost of some new arrangement had to be stated to the Treasury did his name appear, and then it was put prominently forward. "Your Lordships," the postmasters-general would write, with a confidence which must have possessed all the pleasure of a new sensation, "will of course approve our proposals. It is true that the cost they involve is considerable, but the whole of this will fall upon Mr. Allen, the farmer." But so placid was Allen's temper that these petty annoyances, irritating as they might have been to some men, passed unheeded. As a qualification for the task he had undertaken, hardly less important than placidity of temper was the possession of ample means and his unaccountability to others for their disposal. With no one to please but himself, he enjoyed facilities in dealing with postmasters which the Post Office, under the most favourable circumstances, could never hope to possess. To one he would give what he called a complimentary salary; to another he would give, over and above his salary, a certain proportion of the postage; and a third would receive a substantial increase, not for what he had done or was doing, but for what he might do in the future. All, in short, who could control the actions of others Allen bound to himself by a community of interest.