Yes, I "Called Again," Flattering Myself
With The Conjecture That, Even If They Had Not Yet Obtained A Requisite
Amount
Of bankers and mechanics, and even if persons of my particular
aptitudes were still a drug in the market, there
Might nevertheless be
room, amid the ramifications and interstices of so great a department,
for a man or two who could help to count up or pack munitions, or, if
that proposal were hopelessly wide of the mark, for the services of
something even more recondite and exotic - an intelligent corpse-washer,
for instance, or half a dozen astrologers. I felt I could distinguish
myself, at a national crisis like this, in either capacity. Anyhow, it
was only one more afternoon wasted - one out of how many!
This time I saw Mr. W - - . Though I had never met him in the flesh, I
once enjoyed the privilege of perusing a manuscript from his pen - a
story about a girl in Kew Gardens. A nice-looking young Hebrew was Mr.
W - - . He had made himself indispensable, somehow or other, to the
Minister, and would doubtless by this time have been pitchforked into
some permanent and prominent job, but for that unfortunate name of his,
with its strong Teutonic flavour.
This, by the way, was about the eighth official of his tribe, and of his
age, I had come across in the course of my recent peregrinations. How
did they get there? Tell me, who can. Far be it from me to disparage the
race of Israel.
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