PAGE 2
The Office Seeker
by
Oh!
A powerful man, sir–a very powerful man; a man whose influence will presently be felt here, sir–HERE! Well, he had come on with Gashwiler, and–well, he did not know why–Gashwiler did not know why he should not, you know (a feeble, half-apologetic laugh here), receive that reward, you know, for these services which, etc., etc.
I asked him if he had any particular or definite office in view.
Well, no. He had left that to Gashwiler. Gashwiler had said–he remembered his very words: “Leave it all to me; I’ll look through the different departments, and see what can be done for a man of your talents.”
And–
He’s looking. I’m expecting him back here every minute. He’s gone over to the Department of Tape, to see what can be done there. Ah! here he comes.
A large man approached us. He was very heavy, very unwieldy, very unctuous and oppressive. He affected the “honest farmer,” but so badly that the poorest husbandman would have resented it. There was a suggestion of a cheap lawyer about him that would have justified any self-respecting judge in throwing him over the bar at once. There was a military suspicion about him that would have entitled him to a court-martial on the spot. There was an introduction, from which I learned that my office-seeking friend’s name was Expectant Dobbs. And then Gashwiler addressed me:–
“Our young friend here is waiting, waiting. Waiting, I may say, on the affairs of State. Youth,” continued the Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, addressing an imaginary constituency, “is nothing but a season of waiting–of preparation–ha, ha!”
As he laid his hand in a fatherly manner–a fatherly manner that was as much of a sham as anything else about him–I don’t know whether I was more incensed at him or his victim, who received it with evident pride and satisfaction. Nevertheless he ventured to falter out:–
“Has anything been done yet?”
“Well, no; I can’t say that anything–that is, that anything has been COMPLETED; but I may say we are in excellent position for an advance–ha, ha! But we must wait, my young friend, wait. What is it the Latin philosopher says? ‘Let us by all means hasten slowly’–ha, ha!” and he turned to me as if saying confidentially, “Observe the impatience of these boys!” “I met, a moment ago, my old friend and boyhood’s companion, Jim McGlasher, chief of the Bureau for the Dissemination of Useless Information, and,” lowering his voice to a mysterious but audible whisper, “I shall see him again to-morrow.”
The “All aboard!” of the railway omnibus at this moment tore me from the presence of this gifted legislator and his protege; but as we drove away I saw through the open window the powerful mind of Gashwiler operating, so to speak, upon the susceptibilities of Mr. Dobbs.
I did not meet him again for a week. The morning of my return I saw the two conversing together in the hall, but with the palpable distinction between this and their former interviews, that the gifted Gashwiler seemed to be anxious to get away from his friend. I heard him say something about “committees” and “to-morrow,” and when Dobbs turned his freckled face toward me I saw that he had got at last some expression into it–disappointment.
I asked him pleasantly how he was getting on.
He had not lost his pride yet. He was doing well, although such was the value set upon his friend Gashwiler’s abilities by his brother members that he was almost always occupied with committee business. I noticed that his clothes were not in as good case as before, and he told me that he had left the hotel, and taken lodgings in a by-street, where it was less expensive. Temporarily of course.
A few days after this I had business in one of the great departments. From the various signs over the doors of its various offices and bureaus it always oddly reminded me of Stewart’s or Arnold and Constable’s. You could get pensions, patents, and plants. You could get land and the seeds to put in it, and the Indians to prowl round it, and what not. There was a perpetual clanging of office desk bells, and a running hither and thither of messengers strongly suggestive of “Cash 47.”