And as, sitting there at his early desk, his eyes already dim with figures, he sees a jaunty dandy saunter round the opposite corner to the Council Office at eleven o'clock, he cannot but yearn after the pleasures of idleness.
Were it not better done, as others use?
he says or sighs.

But then comes Phoebus in the guise of the chief clerk, and touches his trembling ears-- As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame, in Downing Street--expect the meed.
And so the high tone of the office is maintained.
Such is the character of the Weights and Measures at this present period of which we are now treating.

The exoteric crowd of the Civil Service, that is, the great body of clerks attached to other offices, regard their brethren of the Weights as prigs and pedants, and look on them much as a master's favourite is apt to be regarded by other boys at school.

But this judgement is an unfair one.

Prigs and pedants, and hypocrites too, there are among them, no doubt--but there are also among them many stirred by an honourable ambition to do well for their country and themselves, and to two such men the reader is now requested to permit himself to be introduced.
Henry Norman, the senior of the two, is the second son of a gentleman of small property in the north of England.