of Underclothing. This is not a mere figure of speech on my part: the words are used month by month by each of these Trade Journals. There is very obviously one of politics, but that "career", as things are in London of to-day, has become comparatively decorative—a hobby for Napoleons in retirement. What one would sigh for is no longer the making of a people's laws or of a people's songs, but of a people's socks. With that behind one, one may die Chancellor of the Exchequer and a peer of the realm.
This obviously is desirable enough; we sigh very reasonably for business men in our cabinets. It is picturesque too, and inspiring, it brings about kaleidoscopic changes, and the wildest of contrasts. It makes life more worth living, because it makes life more interesting, and more amusing. The trouble, the defect of this particular Quality, is that the work suffers. The workers and their immediate dependants suffer perhaps still more.
The two clerks in that City Mecca—I happened to be watching them—saw that particular millionaire cross through the cigarette smoke and disappear. He, too, was a Napoleon of a particular financial order, and those two young men, when they rose from their dominos, pulled together their coats, shook their umbrellas a very little, and set their hats on at a particular angle. They were imitating almost gesture for gesture their hero.
I have no means of knowing how much further in the real mysteries of his craft they imitated him. I do not
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