"Yes, we are doing a great business, and to all intents and purposes we
are doing it on false business principles, and with an absolutely
incompetent staff of clerks. What would you think of a merchant who
dismissed all his book-keepers every four years, and engaged a set of
shoemakers, or tailors, or artists, or musicians to fill up the
vacancies?"

A low murmur ran through the hall, a murmur of disapprobation. Probably a
large number out of the three thousand men and women present had cousins
in country post offices. But John did not pause; his voice grew full and
clear, ringing high above the dull sounds in the house. From her place in
the gallery Josephine looked down, never taking her eyes from the face of
the orator. She too was pale with excitement; had she been willing to
acknowledge it, it was fear. That deep-toned beginning of a protest from
the great concourse was like an omen of failure to her sensitive ear. She
longed to see John Harrington succeed and carry his hearers with him into
an access of enthusiasm. John expected no such thing. He only wanted the
people to understand thoroughly what he meant, for he was sure that if
once they knew the truth clearly they would feel for it as he himself did.

"Nevertheless," he continued, "I tell you that is what we are doing, what
we have been doing for years, from the very beginning. And if we go on
doing it we shall get into trouble. We choose schoolboys to do the work of
men, we expect that by the mere signature of the head of the executive any
man can be turned into an accomplished public officer fit to be compared
with one whose whole life has been spent in the public service. We wish to
be represented abroad among foreign nations in a way becoming to our
dignity and very great power, and we select as our ministers a number of
gentlemen who in most cases have never read a diplomatic dispatch in their
lives, and who sometimes are not even acquainted with any language save