The Three Clerks

bitant of London, and every casual visitor there, has admired the handsome edifice which generally goes by that name, and which stands so

selves, 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; a

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 antipo

mount 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 stat

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 rec

Amaryllis i

around him. And as, sitting there at his early desk, his eyes already dim with figures, he sees a jaunty dandy saunter

etter done, a

oebus in the guise of the chief cle

nces lastly

in Downing Street

tone of the offi

ethren of the Weights as prigs and pedants, and look on them much as a master's favourite is apt to be regarded by other boys at school. But this judgement is an unfair one. Prigs and pedants, and hypocrites too, there a

inding himself unable to bear the expense of a university education for his two sons. His elder son at Cambridge was extravagant; and as, at the critical moment when decision became necessary, a nomination in the Weights and Measures was placed at his disposal, old Mr. Norman com

out difficulty and without pause. It is true that the grand modern scheme for competitive examinations had not as yet been composed. Had this been done, and had it been carried out, how awful must have been the cramming necessa

ir fortunes at the bar, or in medical pursuits, or some other comparatively easy walk of life. Others were rejected on the fifth or sixth day as being deficient in conic sections, or ignorant of the exact principles of hydraulic pressure. And even those who were retained were so retained, as it were, by an act of grace. The Weights and Measur

ly enter at ￡100 a year. We are speaking, of course, of that more respectable branch of the establishment called the Secretary's Department. At none other of our public offices do men commence with more

ve sufficed of itself to enable him to live up to that tone of society to which he had been accustomed cannot now be surmised, as very shortly after his appointment an aunt died, from whom he inherited some ￡150 or ￡200

od Road, and as soon as fortune and merit increased his salary by another ￡100 a year, he usually had a nag for the season. This, however, was not attained till he was able to count five years' service in the Weights and Measures. He was, as a boy, somewhat shy and reserved in his manners, and as he became older he did not shake off the fault. He showed it, however, rather among men than with women, and, indeed, in s

ved to pass the scrutinizing instinct and deep powers of examination possessed by the chief clerk, was a great wonder to his friends, though apparently none at all to himself. He took the whole proceeding very easily; while another

h matters, that his only acquirements were a tolerably correct knowledge of English, French, and German, with a smattering of Latin and Greek, and such an intimacy with the

istressing. Shortly after this occurrence the chief clerk had been invited to attend the Board, and the Chairman of the Commissioners, who, on the occasion, was of course prompted by the Secretary, recommended Mr. Hardlines to be a leetle more lenient. In doing so the quantity of butter which he poured over Mr. Hardlines' head and shoulders with the view of alleviating the misery which such a communication would be sure to inflict, was very great. But, nevertheless, Mr. Hardlines came out from the Board a crestfallen and unhappy man. 'The service,' he said, 'would go to the dogs, and might do for anything he cared, and he did n

nt effect of the little lecture which he had received from the Chairman, was the admission into the service of Alaric Tudor. Mr. Hardlines was soon forced to admit t

his face, and had been the delight and wonder of the maidservants in his mother's house, when he returned home for his first official holiday. Tudor wore no whiskers, and his light-brown hair was usually cut so short as to give him something of the appearance of a clean Puritan. But in manners he was no Puritan; nor yet in his mode of life. He was fond of society

rs. Tudor was then dead, and the remainder of the household had consisted of a French governess, a bonne, and a man-cook. Here Alaric remained till he had perfectly acquired the French pronunciation, and very nearly as perfectly forgotten the English. He was then sent to a private school in England, where he remained till he was sixteen, returni

hat he should teach English without remuneration, and learn German without expense. Whether he taught much English may be doubtful, but he did learn

himself to increase his stake. But there is a limit to the good nature of brothers-in-law, even in Belgium; and Alaric was quite aware that no such good luck as this could befall him, at any rate until he had gone through many years of servile labour. His sister also, though

ard's favour, young Tudor's friends despaired, and recommended him to abandon the idea, as, should he throw himself into the Thames, he might perhaps fall beyond the reach of the waterman's hook. Alaric himself, ho

his income would be to ascribe unjustly to him vile motives and a mean instinct. He had not done so. The two young men had been thrown together by circumstances. They worked at the same desk, liked each other's soci

mpted to pull an oar from Searle's slip to Battersea bridge. But his failure in this line was so complete, and he had to encounter so much of Norman's raillery, which was endurable,

ds soon became common to them. The acquaintance originally belonged to Norman, and he had first cemented his friendship with Tudo

to play as important a part in the tale about to be told as our two friends of the

eface, of him as of Harry Norman, that the faults of his character