CHAPTER XVII
When I came into the Service, one got in on a Minister’s “say so.” That was all that was necessary. If your Minister intended you to get in, you got in quickly, without heart-breaking waiting or examinations that did not examine. A Minister’s “say so” was secured if you could get close enough to him to enable you to point your gun at his head and whisper in his ear in a threatening, stagey voice that the gun was loaded with a great charge of influence, family connections, friends, contractors, manufacturers, etc. It really mattered very little whether the gun was actually loaded or not, for all politicians are most notoriously nervous, and take for granted that every gun they see is loaded. It is a safe way. Politicians forget easily, so sometimes the gun had to be produced several times to bring about fulfilment of the promise; but with a gun, or something that looked like a gun, a determined air, and nerve, you could do a great deal.
During these manœuvres I had not mentioned the matter of a Civil Service position to Muriel or my family. When it was as good as settled, I told my father. He said “What?” so loudly that the windows rattled. He said other things not necessary to mention. My mother’s father had been a Civil servant, and my decision to follow the same life seemed to my father a horrible case of reversion. Muriel was not enthusiastic about the prospective change; but she was resigned to her fate. “I suppose it is thebest thing,” she said and shrugged her shoulders. She had no great confidence in my judgment, but she had great faith in my luck.
Not many weeks elapsed between my interview with Minister One and my instalment in the service of the Queen. This, of course, was due to Rex, who was keeper of the Minister’s memory. One day Rex sent for me, and I was presented to Mr. Gobble, the Deputy Minister of Ways and Means, and received the very pleasing information that I was to report for duty at Ottawa immediately. Details were discussed. I was a little disappointed to learn that the promise of my Minister, of a position of fifteen hundred dollars per annum, had to be modified. As I was over thirty-five, I could not enter on the permanent staff or Civil Service List, but had to enter as an extra clerk, at the regular rate in such cases, namely, three dollars per day. I was assured, however, by Minister One, his Deputy and Rex, that very soon after I was placed they would see to it that I was raised to the promised sum. I believed every word they said.
Fifteen hundred a year, coming in regularly and systematically, whether business was good or bad, looked bigger than a house to me at the time, and was magnified many times in my eyes before I really got it. I had often lived on more money, but more often had lived on less, and I saw myself writing for magazines and papers, teaching music, living in peace and comfort, and bringing up my children. It was a very modest ambition.
On Monday, the fourteenth day of January, in the year Thirty-Seven, I arrived in Ottawa. When I walked into the Government building the policeman on the door touched his hat to my English clothes,which were still good. I presented myself at the green baize door of Mr. Gobble’s office, and was presently shown in by a messenger, who had first taken in my card. Mr. Gobble had already forgotten me, so shook hands heartily as if he were pleased to see me again and invited me to sit down. “Well, Mr. Wesblock, what now?” he said, waiting for the cue which would show him who the deuce I was.
“I am Three-Dollar-a-Day-Wesblock,” I said; “told to report here to-day, and here I am.”
Light broke upon Mr. Gobble and he laughed loudly at a point I did not see, but I joined his laugh.
“You will go into the office of Mercenary Dispensations,” said Gobble. “You will like the Chief Dispenser, Mr. Kingdom. I will present you to him now, if you will come with me.” He rose and I followed him to Mr. Kingdom’s office. It was a small place which had not been thoroughly cleaned for a long time. Everything in the room was old-fashioned and dingy. A litter of papers was strewn in every direction; papers were piled on a little counter that stood before the door, on the chairs in bundles, on the floor in a corner, and in huge heterogeneous stacks upon an ancient desk. Before this object sat a sad-eyed, prematurely decayed and old-fashioned man, who rose as we entered. “Mr. Kingdom,” said the Deputy, “this is Mr. Wesblock, your newly appointed clerk.”
“Ah!” sighed Mr. Kingdom, and he busied himself clearing a chair for me to sit upon. “Sit down, Mr. Wesblock,” and he smiled upon me sadly.
“I will leave Mr. Wesblock with you,” said the Deputy to Mr. Kingdom, and to me, “Good-morning, Mr. Wesblock,” and he left the room.
Mr. Kingdom mildly and tentatively cross-examinedme, and I gave a short account of myself. His manner said nearly as plainly as words, “God knows what I am going to do with you.”
I have excellent sight, and while we talked I noted a piece of paper before Mr. Kingdom upon which was type-written a long column of figures. Some one had evidently just added this column and the total was written in blue pencil on a pad before me. These little things were of no particular interest to me, but I idly noted them for want of better occupation.
“Just add this column for me, Mr. Wesblock,” said Mr. Kingdom, and he pushed towards me the paper I had noticed. Whether he thought I looked as if I could not do simple addition, or not, I do not know. Carefully noting the total I had already observed in blue pencil, which was still nearly under my nose, I gave him an exhibition of lightning addition, which seemed to enthuse him to mild satisfaction. We were each satisfied with ourselves; he, that he had a clerk who could read, write, and add; I, that I had a chief with whom any one could get along without half trying, and I intended to try.
“I will now take you to Father Steve,” said Mr. Kingdom, “whom you will assist.” We went into the adjoining room, which was very much like Mr. Kingdom’s, with the exception that it was inhabited by two ancients instead of one.
I was presented to Father Steve and Mr. Ernest, the two ancients. Father Steve was a little old man with white whiskers. He wore spectacles far down on his nose, and glared at me with two fiery eyes, as if he were indignant at some affront I had put upon him. Ernest was a younger man, handsome, intelligent looking, but seedy. I judged by the expectant smileon Ernest’s face that Father Steve was in some way amusing him at my expense. Mr. Kingdom left the room, and Father Steve walked coolly over to me, where I stood in the middle of the room near a high desk. He walked around me very much as one dog walks around another before the fight begins. Then he posted himself before me, and looking into my face most impertinently said, “What the devil are you going to do here?” I saw now that the old buffer was a little bit of all right, and that he was acting for his pal Ernest. “I am going to assist you, Mr. Steve,” I said.
“Assist me?” he growled. “Oh hell! Assist me! Now look here, Blockhead, I do not intend to be assisted, and I’ll be damned if I’ll be assisted. I am only a young chap of seventy years of age. I’ve been here for thirty years at three dollars a day, and I don’t need assistance.” I believe the old chap would have worked himself into an actual rage in a minute.
“Now look here, Pa,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder, much to his surprise, “I am going to assist you or not, just as you say, but first of all let us be friends, and I fancy we can have a bit of fun together.”
“What did you call me, sir?” he asked, pretending indignation.
“I called you ‘Pa,’” I said.
“Damned familiarity,” he exclaimed.
Ernest was now laughing heartily and the old man joined him with me.
“What did you call me?” I asked in pretended anger.
“‘Blockhead,’” said the old man, “and good enough for you, damn you.” And from that day till his death we were “Pa” and “Blockhead” to each other, andmany were the pranks we played on others. The merry old soul died at seventy-six.
I enjoyed Pa very much, but my first glimpse of the Civil Service at close quarters did not arouse any particular enthusiasm within me. I looked upon a shabby world. I was rather a smart and well-kept looking person, and I felt out of place among the dingy, old, shabby-looking offices, which were badly ventilated and badly lighted, inhabited by a dingy, slipshod looking lot of nondescript humanity, not the kind of men I expected to be associated with at all. I found all sorts and conditions of men of just the same average of decency, intelligence and sobriety as are to be met with outside the service, no better and no worse. I did not find the pampered, well-fed, well-groomed and cultured lot of semi-idle gentlemen who are popularly supposed to exist on Civil Service salaries.
I had arrived in the Kingdom of the Automaton. It was at the end of the Political Era, when some pretence was being made to eliminate that kind of Pull which enabled a Minister, or any one who was politically strong, to dump any kind of humanity into the Civil Service, just because it served his personal ends. We had a clerk in the Department of Ways and Means who had been a waiter in an hotel, and was appointed in reward for services rendered a Minister during his numerous sprees. We had other persons just as objectionable, brought in for reasons just as edifying.