The transaction moved like a glacier with dignity to its appointed end, and the stove reached the infirmary in good order in time for the Indian agent to acknowledge its arrival in these words: "The stove is here.

So is spring." The Civil Service Commission, under men like John McIlhenny and Garfield, rendered service without which the Government could have been conducted with neither efficiency nor honesty.

The politicians were not the only persons at fault; almost as much improper pressure for appointments is due to mere misplaced sympathy, and to the spiritless inefficiency which seeks a Government office as a haven for the incompetent.

An amusing feature of office seeking is that each man desiring an office is apt to look down on all others with the same object as forming an objectionable class with which _he_ has nothing in common.

At the time of the eruption of Mt.