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As is always the case, it was the smaller officials who were the most offensive the little Jacks-in-office from the postal administration, the common officers, the hundred obscure civil servants who wear a sword and uniform unworthily in any one of the three European empires.
Without his help and that of the commissary I should have been in great difficulty; it would have been a case of the earthen pot and the iron pot over again; for with jacks-in-office reason is of no use, and though I had plenty of money I would never have let the wretches rob me of fifty louis.
D. wrote to me five and a half lines, inquiring as to my terms. You probably know my reply. I wish the inhuman creature had sent me the money at once. Good Lord, what Jacks-in-office you all are! None of you can put himself in the place of a poor devil like me who looks upon every source of income as a lucky draw in a lottery. Please, tread gently upon his toe.
Just think," he added, with returning indignation, "of free-born British subjects being allowed no newspaper to read except one that is first revised by a jealous, despotic Governor, and of our being obliged to procure a `pass' to entitle us to go about the country, as if we were Kafirs or Hottentots to say nothing of the insolence of the Jacks-in-office who grant such `passes, or the ridiculous laws regarding the natives bah!
So, the reader will see, that our hero was not in a very serene and genial mood when he was buttonholed by the editor in the lobby, and, it is feared, he was unusually curt with that gentleman, which editors do not like, and sometimes reward with a leading article in consequence, on the character and career of our political chief, perhaps with some passing reference to jacks-in-office, and the superficial impertinence of private secretaries.
The levellers sent their spokesman one Pride, an ex-drayman, now colonel of horse to the door of the House of Commons, who arrested the more faithful and moderate members, imposed himself and his rebel crew upon the House, and hurried on that violation of constitutional law, that travesty of justice, which compelled an anointed King to stand before the lowest of his subjects the jacks-in-office of a mutinous commonalty to answer for having fought in defence of his own inviolable rights."
Without his help and that of the commissary I should have been in great difficulty; it would have been a case of the earthen pot and the iron pot over again; for with jacks-in-office reason is of no use, and though I had plenty of money I would never have let the wretches rob me of fifty louis.
Seldom, if ever, do these Royal people understand music, still less do they understand the musician! Believe me, I have been treated as the veriest scullion by these jacks-in-office; and that I still permit myself to play before them is a duty I owe to this Brotherhood, because it deepens and sustains my bond with you all.
Amongst the number was one of the gentlemen who had given me his address on the previous day, when I left my thousand pounds; and he heartily thanked me for having brought these Jacks-in-office for once to their senses, and compelled them to act agreeably to the law, which they had so long been in the habit of setting at defiance.
I had no reason to fear them, but I do not care to be interfered with and questioned by these jacks-in-office of the republic." A few minutes later they reached the place where he embarked, and as he got out he handed the money he had promised to Giuseppi. "Next Thursday night," he said, "at half past ten." "It seems a dangerous sort of service, signor," Giuseppi said hesitatingly.
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