Civil service -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
But Sir Gregory could not at all get the third king into his pocket.
This gentleman was a worthy clergyman from Cambridge, one Mr. Jobbles by
name. Mr. Jobbles had for many years been examining undergraduates for
little goes and great goes, and had passed his life in putting posing
questions, in detecting ignorance by viva voce scrutiny, and eliciting
learning by printed papers. He, by a stupendous effort of his
mathematical mind, had divided the adult British male world into classes
and sub-classes, and could tell at a moment's notice how long it would
take him to examine them all. His soul panted for the work. Every man
should, he thought, be made to pass through some 'go.' The
greengrocer's boy should not carry out cabbages unless his fitness
for cabbage-carrying had been ascertained, and till it had also been
ascertained that no other boy, ambitious of the preferment, would carry
them better. Difficulty! There was no difficulty. Could not he, Jobbles,
get through 5,000 viva voces in every five hours--that is, with due
assistance? and would not 55,000 printed papers, containing 555,000
questions, be getting themselves answered at the same time, with more or
less precision?
So now Mr. Jobbles was about to try his huge plan by a small
commencement.
On the present occasion the examination was actually to be carried on by
two of the kings in person. Sir Gregory had declared that as so large a
portion of his heart and affections was bound up with the gentlemen of
the Weights and Measures, he could not bring himself actually to ask
questions of them, and then to listen to or read their answers. Should
any of his loved ones make some fatal _faux pas_, his tears, like those
of the recording angel, would blot out the error. His eyes would refuse
to see faults, if there should be faults, in those whom he himself had
nurtured. Therefore, though he came with his colleagues to the Weights
and Measures, he did not himself take part in the examination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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