, I put in my due appearance, as required, to have my
attainments tested:--in order that I might be reported upon as fit, or
not, to undertake the very onerous duties of the office to which I had
been probationally appointed.

I was quite hopeful as to the result, for my "crammer" again impressed
me at the last moment with his entire conviction that I would pass with
eclat; while, my good friend the vicar, who had given me the most
flaming of testimonials, cheered me up with his cordial wishes for my
success, as did also dear little Miss Pimpernell, in her customary
impulsive way.

"Down along in Westminster, not far from the side of the wa--ter," as is
sung in the eloquent strains of a certain "Pretty Little Ratcatcher's
Daughter," who was known and admired "all around that quar--ter," stands
the not-by-any-means-gloomy-looking mansion of Her Majesty's Polite
Letter Writer Commissioners--over whose fell door so many trembling
candidates for situations under Government might, very reasonably, trace
the mystic characters of the inscription surmounting Dante's
_Inferno_--"Lasciate ogni speranza doi ch' entrate!"

Arrived here, and mounting a series of stairs until I had reached the
topmost floor, to which I was directed by the janitor, I found myself at
last in a long, low, gothic-lighted room--whose windows had commanding
views of the grand hotel over the way, the roof of the Abbey alongside,
and the police station in the centre of the problematical "green" in
front.

Here, the competitors could reflect--while awaiting their papers, or
when chewing the cud of contentment or despair at the contemplation of
the same--on what might be the vicissitudes of their lot in the event of
their failure or success.

At a given signal, fifty-nine other persons and myself, all doomed to
compete for six vacancies in the much-desired office of the Obstructor
General, were ushered, like schoolboys, into another and inner room,
opening out of the former and garnished with rows of green-baize-covered
tables, running from end to end.

This room seemed to bring back to me a host of old recollections; and,
each moment, I was expecting to see the ghost of "Old Jack," my head
instructor at Queen's College School in days of yore, and hear him
exclaiming in his well-remembered stentorian tones--"Boy Lorton--you are
detained for inattention! Stop in and write five hundred lines!"--and,
then, to see him come swooping down the room upon me, w