another in a greater degree, imitating the
clanship of Scotchmen and Jews, than those occupied in any other walk in
life.

Professionals move, as a rule, in petty cliques; city people find their
interests clash too much for them to associate in such harmony as do
those engaged in Government offices. They may be said, certainly, to
form a clique, and to have strong party interests also; but then, their
clique is so large a one that the prominent features of narrow-
mindedness and utter selfishness, which distinguish smaller coteries,
are lost in its more extended circle; while, its interests are self-
centred, its members having nothing to fear or expect from the outside
public.

And yet, with all that good fellowship and staunch fidelity, as a
class--when personal pique, and what I might call "promotion jealousy,"
does not interfere to mar the warm sympathies that exist between the
units of this officially happy family--Government clerks are a very
discontented set of men, grumbling from morning until night at their
position, their prospects, their future.

Really, when I first joined, I thought them all so many Lady Dashers in
disguise. I could hardly believe that such cheerful fellows should be
at heart so morbidly exacerbated!

They do not, it is true, grumble at those of their own standing in the
service; nor do they try to out-manoeuvre their fellows of the same
department; but, third-class men are jealous of those in the second-
class, second-class men of lucky "seniors," hankering after their shoes;
and all, alike envious, both individually and collectively, of other
branches, unite in one compact band of martyrs against the encroachments
and tyrannies of higher officialdom--considering chiefs, secretaries of
state, and such like birds of ill-omen, as virtual enemies and
oppressors, with whom they are bound to prosecute a perpetual guerilla
warfare:--a warfare in which, alas! they are sadly over-matched.

Smith does not mind in the least--that is, as far as human nature can be
magnanimous--that Robinson, of his own office, should be preferred
before him, and raised to a superior grade in advance of his legitimate
turn. He may, undoubtedly, believe it to bear the semblance of "hard
lines" to himself personally, that he was not chosen instead; still, he
puts it all down to Robinson's wonderful luck, and his own miserable
fatality, bearing his successful comrade no ill-will in consequence.

But, let Jones,