And if he has a pretty wife into the bargain, he ought to have a pleasant time of it." Mr.Ratler no doubt was a very useful man, who thoroughly knew his business; but yet, as it seemed to Phineas, no very great distinction was shown to Mr.Ratler at Loughlinter.

"If I got as high as that," he said to himself, "I should think myself a miracle of luck.

And yet nobody seems to think anything of Ratler.

It is all nothing unless one can go to the very top." "I believe I did right to accept office," Mr.Monk said to him one day, as they sat together on a rock close by one of the little bridges over the Linter.

"Indeed, unless a man does so when the bonds of the office tendered to him are made compatible with his own views, he declines to proceed on the open path towards the prosecution of those views.