The Three Clerks | Page 5

RETURNS TO TOWN XVI. THE FIRST WEDDING XVII. THE HONOURABLE MRS. VAL AND MISS GOLIGHTLY XVIII. A DAY WITH ONE OF THE NAVVIES.--MORNING XIX. A DAY WITH ONE OF THE NAVVIES.--AFTERNOON XX. A DAY WITH ONE OF THE NAVVIES.--EVENING XXI. HAMPTON COURT BRIDGE XXII. CRINOLINE AND MACASSAR; OR, MY AUNT'S WILL XXIII. SURBITON COLLOQUIES XXIV. MR. M'BUFFER ACCEPTS THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS XXV. CHISWICK GARDENS XXVI. KATIE'S FIRST BALL XXVII. EXCELSIOR XXVIII. OUTERMAN v. TUDOR XXIX. EASY IS THE SLOPE OF HELL XXX. MRS. WOODWARD'S REQUEST XXXI. HOW APOLLO SAVED THE NAVVY XXXII. THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE XXXIII. TO STAND, OR NOT TO STAND XXXIV. WESTMINSTER HALL XXXV. MRS. VAL'S NEW CARRIAGE XXXVI. TICKLISH STOCK XXXVII. TRIBULATION XXXVIII. ALARIC TUDOR TAKES A WALK XXXIX. THE LAST BREAKFAST XL. MR. CHAFFANBRASS XLI. THE OLD BAILEY XLII. A PARTING INTERVIEW XLIII. MILLBANK XLIV. THE CRIMINAL POPULATION IS DISPOSED OF XLV. THE FATE OF THE NAVVIES XLVI. MR. NOGO'S LAST QUESTION XLVII. CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I
THE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
All the English world knows, or knows of, that branch of the Civil Service which is popularly called the Weights and Measures. Every inhabitant of London, and every casual visitor there, has admired the handsome edifice which generally goes by that name, and which stands so conspicuously confronting the Treasury Chambers. It must be owned that we have but a slip-slop way of christening our public buildings. When a man tells us that he called on a friend at the Horse Guards, or looked in at the Navy Pay, or dropped a ticket at the Woods and Forests, we put up with the accustomed sounds, though they are in themselves, perhaps, indefensible. The 'Board of Commissioners for Regulating Weights and Measures', and the 'Office of the Board of Commissioners for Regulating Weights and Measures', are very long phrases; and as, in the course of this tale, frequent mention will be made of the public establishment in question, the reader's comfort will be best consulted by maintaining its popular though improper denomination.
It is generally admitted that the Weights and Measures is a well- conducted public office; indeed, to such a degree of efficiency has it been brought by its present very excellent secretary, the two very worthy assistant-secretaries, and especially by its late most respectable chief clerk, that it may be said to stand quite alone as a high model for all other public offices whatever. It is exactly antipodistic of the Circumlocution Office, and as such is always referred to in the House of Commons by the gentleman representing the Government when any attack on the Civil Service, generally, is being made.
And when it is remembered how great are the interests entrusted to the care of this board, and of these secretaries and of that chief clerk, it must be admitted that nothing short of superlative excellence ought to suffice the nation. All material intercourse between man and man must be regulated, either justly or unjustly, by weights and measures; and as we of all people depend most on such material intercourse, our weights and measures should to us be a source of never-ending concern. And then that question of the decimal coinage! is it not in these days of paramount importance? Are we not disgraced by the twelve pennies in our shilling, by the four farthings in our penny? One of the worthy assistant-secretaries, the worthier probably of the two, has already grown pale beneath the weight of this question. But he has sworn within himself, with all the heroism of a Nelson, that he will either do or die. He will destroy the shilling or the shilling shall destroy him. In his more ardent moods he thinks that he hears the noise of battle booming round him, and talks to his wife of Westminster Abbey or a peerage. Then what statistical work of the present age has shown half the erudition contained in that essay lately published by the secretary on _The Market Price of Coined Metals_? What other living man could have compiled that chronological table which is appended to it, showing the comparative value of the metallic currency for the last three hundred years? Compile it indeed! What other secretary or assistant-secretary belonging to any public office of the present day, could even read it and live? It completely silenced Mr. Muntz for a session, and even The Times was afraid to review it.
Such a state of official excellence has not, however, been obtained without its drawbacks, at any rate in the eyes of the unambitious tyros and unfledged novitiates of the establishment. It is a very fine thing to be pointed out by envying fathers as a promising clerk in the Weights and Measures, and to receive civil speeches from mammas with marriageable daughters. But a clerk in the Weights and Measures is soon