FullReads

The thought struck Harry Covare that in that case there would be no John J. Laylor, but he would not interrupt.

“And what is more,” continued the Shipwreck Clerk, “I’d close up this whole department at twelve o’clock on Saturdays. The way things are managed now, a man has no time to attend to his own private business. Suppose I think of buying a piece of land, and want to go out and look at it, or suppose any one of you gentlemen were here and thought of buying a piece of land and wanted to go out and look at it, what are you going to do about it? You don’t want to go on Sunday, and when are you going to go?”

Not one of the other gentlemen had ever thought of buying a piece of land, nor had they any reason to suppose that they ever would purchase an inch of soil unless they bought it in a flower-pot; but they all agreed that the way things were managed now there was no time for a man to attend to his own business.

“But you can’t expect John J. Laylor to do anything,” said the Shipwreck Clerk.

However, there was one thing which that gentleman always expected John J. Laylor to do. When the clerk was surrounded by a number of persons in hours of business, and when he had succeeded in impressing them with the importance of his functions and the necessity of paying deferential attention to himself if they wished their business attended to, John J. Laylor would be sure to walk into the office and address the Shipwreck Clerk in such a manner as to let the people present know that he was a clerk and nothing else, and that he, the Registrar, was the head of that department. These humiliations the Shipwreck Clerk never forgot.

There was a little pause here, and then Mr. Mathers remarked:

“I should think you’d be awfully bored with the long stories of shipwrecks that the people come and tell you.”

He hoped to change the conversation, because, although he wished to remain on good terms with the subordinate officers, it was not desirable that he should be led to say much against John J. Laylor.

“No, sir,” said the Shipwreck Clerk, “I am not bored. I did not come here to be bored, and as long as I have charge of this office I don’t intend to be. The long-winded old salts who come here to report their wrecks never spin out their prosy yarns to me. The first thing I do is to let them know just what I want of them; and not an inch beyond that does a man of them go, at least while I am managing the business. There are times when John J. Laylor comes in, and puts in his oar, and wants to hear the whole story; which is pure stuff and nonsense, for John J. Laylor doesn’t know anything more about a shipwreck than he does about–“

“The endemies in the Lake George area,” suggested Harry Covare.

“Yes; or any other part of his business,” said the Shipwreck Clerk; “and when he takes it into his head to interfere, all business stops till some second mate of a coal-schooner has told his whole story from his sighting land on the morning of one day to his getting ashore on it on the afternoon of the next. Now I don’t put up with any such nonsense. There’s no man living that can tell me anything about shipwrecks. I’ve never been to sea myself, but that’s not necessary; and if I had gone, it’s not likely I’d been wrecked. But I’ve read about every kind of shipwreck that ever happened. When I first came here I took care to post myself upon these matters, because I knew it would save trouble. I have read ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ ‘The Wreck of the “Grosvenor,”‘ ‘The Sinking of the “Royal George,”‘ and wrecks by water-spouts, tidal waves, and every other thing which would knock a ship into a cocked hat, and I’ve classified every sort of wreck under its proper head; and when I’ve found out to what class a wreck belongs, I know all about it. Now, when a man comes here to report a wreck, the first thing he has to do is just to shut down on his story, and to stand up square and answer a few questions that I put to him. In two minutes I know just what kind of shipwreck he’s had; and then, when he gives me the name of his vessel, and one or two other points, he may go. I know all about that wreck, and I make a much better report of the business than he could have done if he’d stood here talking three days and three nights. The amount of money that’s been saved to our taxpayers by the way I’ve systematized the business of this office is not to be calculated in figures.”