'I shall try for the Customs; one does get such stunning feeds for tenpence at that place in Thames Street.' Poor youth! his ideas of earning his bread did not in their wildest flight spread beyond the public offices of the Civil Service.
For a few days longer they hung about the old office, doing nothing--how could men so circumstanced do anything ?--and waiting for their fate.

At last their fate was announced.

Mr.
Oldeschole retired with his full salary.

Secretaries and such-like always retire with full pay, as it is necessary that dignity should be supported.

Mr.Snape and the other seniors were pensioned, with a careful respect to their years of service; with which arrangement they all of them expressed themselves highly indignant, and loudly threatened to bring the cruelty of their treatment before Parliament, by the aid of sundry members, who were supposed to be on the look out for such work; but as nothing further was ever heard of them, it may be presumed that the members in question did not regard the case as one on which the Government of the day was sufficiently vulnerable to make it worth their while to trouble themselves.