anywhere if he have only sufficient tact not to abuse his privileges.
Hook grew great in London society for a time, and might have grown
greater if a change had not come.

He had supported himself, up to 1812, almost entirely by his pen: and
the goose-quill is rarely a staff, though it may sometimes be a
walking-stick. It was clear that he needed--what so many of us need and
cannot get--a certainty. Happy fellow! he might have begged for an
appointment for years in vain, as many another does, but it fell into
his lap, no one knows how, and at four-and-twenty Mr. Theodore Edward
Hook was made treasurer to the Island of Mauritius, with a salary of
£2,000 per annum. This was not to be, and was not, despised. In spite of
climate, mosquitoes, and so forth, Hook took the money and sailed.

We have no intention of entering minutely upon his conduct in this
office, which has nothing to do with his character as a wit. There are a
thousand and one reasons for believing him guilty of the charges brought
against him, and a thousand and one for supposing him guiltless. Here
was a young man, gay, jovial, given to society entirely, and not at all
to arithmetic, put into a very trying and awkward position--native
clerks who would cheat if they could, English governors who would find
fault if they could, a disturbed treasury, an awkward currency, liars
for witnesses, and undeniable evidence of defalcation. In a word, an
examination was made into the state of the treasury of the island, and a
large deficit found. It remained to trace it home to its original
author.

Hook had not acquired the best character in the island. Those who know
the official dignity of a small British colony can well understand how
his pleasantries must have shocked those worthy big-wigs who, exalted