They should know that their intellects were a sacred pledge intrusted to them for the good of that service, and should use them accordingly.

This should be their highest ambition.

And what higher ambition,' asked Sir Gregory, 'could they have?
They all, alas! knew that the service had been disgraced in other quarters by idleness, incompetency, and, he feared he must say, dishonesty; till incompetency and dishonesty had become, not the exception, but the rule.

It was too notorious that the Civil Service was filled by the family fools of the aristocracy and middle classes, and that any family who had no fool to send, sent in lieu thereof some invalid past hope.

Thus the service had become a hospital for incurables and idiots.