CHAPTER FIVE.
"LOVE LIES BLEEDING." What is my guilt that makes me so with thee?
Have I not languished prostrate at thy feet?
Have I not lived whole days upon thy sight?
Have I not seen thee where thou hast not been; And, mad with the idea, clasp'd the wind, And doated upon nothing?
Although Mr Mawley had expressed such a disparaging opinion anent my capabilities for official work, I do not think I made such an inefficient clerk on the whole.
I did not mulct my country of any portion of the hours appointed for my labour, pleading Charles Lamb's humorous excuse, that, if I _did_ come late, I certainly made up for it "by going away early!" On the contrary, my attendance was so uniformly regular, that it attracted the notice of the chief of my room, getting me a word of commendation.
Praise from such a quarter was praise indeed, as the individual in question was one of the old order of clerks, stiff, prosaic and crabbed to a degree--who looked upon all the new race of young men that now entered the service as so many sons of Belial.

"Their ways" were not "his ways;" and, their free and easy manners, and absence of all that wholesome awe of chiefs which had been customary in his day, proved, beyond doubt, that official life in general, and that of _his_ department in particular, was decidedly "going to the devil!" He lived in the office, I verily believe; coming there at some unearthly hour in the morning, and leaving long after every one else had sought their homes.
The messengers had been interrogated on the subject of his arrival, but they protested that they always found him installed at his usual desk, no matter how early they might set about clearing out the room in anticipation of the ordinary routine of the day; while, as for the time of his departure, nobody could give any reliable information respecting that! The hall-porter, who remained in charge of the establishment when business was over, might, perhaps, have afforded us some data on which we could have decided the mooted point, but he was a moody, taciturn personage, who had never been known to utter a word to living man-- consequently, it was of no use appealing to him.
One of the fellows reported, indeed, that once having to return to the office at midnight, in search of his latch-key which he had forgotten in his office-coat, and without which he was unable to obtain admittance to his lodgings, he found old "Smudge,"-- as we somewhat irreverently termed the chief,--who was particularly neat and nice in his handwriting-- working away; minuting and docketing papers, just as if it had been early in the afternoon.

It was his firm persuasion, _he_ said, that Smudge never went away at all, but remained in the office altogether, sleeping in a waste basket, his head pillowed on the debris of destroyed correspondence! Of course we did not really believe in the latter part of this statement; still, it was quite feasible, I'm sure, now that I think it over.
His habit every morning was to draw a great black line, punctually as the clock chimed half-past ten, across the middle of the attendance-- book, which stood on a bracket near the door, handy for everybody coming in; the clerks having to sign it on entering, inserting the exact time at which they put in an appearance.

Our normal hour was supposed to be ten, the half-hour being only so much grace allowed for dilatory persons delayed by matters "over which they had no control"-- although few they were who did not take advantage of it.
Why the old gentleman drew this line, none could tell; for, no bad results ensued to sinners who signed after its limitation--many of those who were invariably late, being subsequently duly promoted in their turn, as vacancies occurred.
But, the practice appeared to give Smudge great satisfaction.

He, probably, took some malicious pleasure in scoring up the delinquencies of his staff, mentally consigning the underliners, most likely, to irretrievable ruin, both in this world and the next! I, as I've already said, was an exception to this rule.
I must explain, however, that my good hours did not proceed from any intense wish on my part to ingratiate myself with the chief.