Smith had been in the Government service, at home and abroad, for more than thirty years, and he was now sixty years old, or close upon it.

He could not remember a year in which he had had a vacation of more than a fortnight's length; he was weary all through to the bones and the marrow, now, and was yearning for a holiday of a whole three months--yearning so longingly and so poignantly that he had at last made up his mind to make a desperate cast for it and stand the consequences, whatever they might be.

It was against all rules to _ask_ for a vacation--quite against all etiquette; the shock of it would paralyze the Chancellery; stem etiquette and usage required another form: the applicant was not privileged to ask for a vacation, he must send in his _resignation_.

The chancellor would know that the applicant was not really trying to resign, and didn't want to resign, but was merely trying in this left-handed way to get a vacation.
The night before the Emperor's dinner I helped Smith take his exercise, after midnight, and he was full of his project.

He had sent in his resignation that day, and was trembling for the result; and naturally, because it might possibly be that the chancellor would be happy to fill his place with somebody else, in which case he could accept the resignation without comment and without offence.