"There's Horner, for instance.

You don't suppose, sir, that _he_ confers such inestimable benefit on his country by his daily avocations in Downing Street ?" "Ah, poor Jack Horner!" laughed the vicar; "he's really not very bright.
But, we need not be so uncharitable as to think that he does not do his money's worth for his money! He writes a beautiful hand, you know; and, I dare say, his mere services as a copying machine are of some value.
Government clerks do not all play every day, Frank:--you will, I'm sure, find plenty to do, if you go into office life.

I remember, in the time of the Crimean war, that a friend of mine, employed in the Admiralty at Whitehall, used to have to stop up every alternate night at his office, the whole night through; and this was the case, too, at all the other public departments! The clerks in each room were obliged to take it in turn for night duty; while, those who were free to go home--and they did not leave work until long after the traditional `four o'clock' on most days--had to specify where they could be found every evening, in case they should be suddenly wanted on the arrival of despatches from the seat of war.

Of course this state of affairs is not ordinary; still, Government clerks are not idlers as a body:--on the contrary, you will find them thorough working-men." "Working-men!" ejaculated little Miss Pimpernell, raising her beady black eyes in astonishment to her brother, "why, I thought all working- men, properly so-called, were mechanics!" "That is the radical politician's view, my dear," answered the vicar.
"Let a man be apprenticed to a skilled trade, and carry a bricklayer's hod, or a carpenter's rule.

Let him only wear slops and work in an engine-room, or use a mason's trowel--so long as he does these things and receives his wages weekly, he is a `working-man;' and, must have the hours of labour made to suit him, the legislation of the country altered on his behalf, the taxation of the public judiciously contrived to steer clear of him.