Two or three clerks that were reading the newspapers looked at me rather hard, but went on reading, and nobody said anything.

However, I had been used to this kind of alacrity from Fourth Assistant Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from the very day I entered the first office of the Corn-Beef Bureau clear till I passed out of the last one in the Dead Reckoning Division.

I had got so accomplished by this time that I could stand on one foot from the moment I entered an office till a clerk spoke to me, without changing more than two, or maybe three, times.
So I stood there till I had changed four different times.

Then I said to one of the clerks who was reading: "Illustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk ?" "What do you mean, sir?
whom do you mean?
If you mean the Chief of the Bureau, he is out." "Will he visit the harem to-day ?" The young man glared upon me awhile, and then went on reading his paper.
But I knew the ways of those clerks.

I knew I was safe if he got through before another New York mail arrived.