where
he spent his spare hours in his garden and enjoyed a comfortable and
happy life.

Except the chief clerk, whose salary was about 160 pounds, I do not
believe there was another whose pay exceeded 100 pounds a year. The real
head of the office, or _department_ it was called, was not the chief
clerk but one who ranked higher still and was styled _Head of
Department_, and he received a salary of about 300 pounds. Moderate
salaries prevailed, but the sovereign was worth much more then than now,
while wants were fewer. Beer was threepence the pint and tobacco
threepence the ounce, and beer we drank but never whiskey or wine; and
pipes we smoked but not cigars.

This chief clerk was an amiable rather ladylike person, with small hands
and feet and well-arranged curly hair. He was quick and clever and work
sat lightly upon him. Quiet and good natured, when necessity arose he
never failed to assert his authority. We all respected him. His young
wife was pretty and pleasant, which was in his favour too.

The office was by no means altogether composed of steady specimens of
clerkdom, but had a large admixture of lively sparks who, though they
would never set the Thames on fire, brightened and enlivened our
surroundings.

There was one, a literary genius, who had entered the service, I believe
by influence, for influence and patronage were in those days not unknown.
He wrote in his spare time the pantomime for a Birmingham theatre; and
there constantly fluttered from his desk and circulated through the
office, little scraps of paper containing quips and puns and jokes in
prose or verse, or acrostics from his prolific pen. One clever acrostic
upon the office boy, which has always remained in my memory, I should
like for its delicate irony (worthy of Swift himself) to reproduce; but
as that promising youth may still be in the service I feel I had better
not, as irony sometimes wounds. For some time we had in the office an
Apollo--a very Belvidere. He was a glory introduced into railway life by
I know not what influence and disappeared after a time I know not where
or why. A marvel of manly strength and grace and beauty, thirty years of
age or so, and faultlessly dressed. Said to be aristocratically
connected, he was the admiration of all and the darling of the young
ladies of Derby. He lodged in fashionable apartments, smoked expensive
cigars, attended all public amusements, was affable and charming, but
retic