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JOHN CALDIGATE
the hardships inflicted on that poor lady at Folking. But he was
elated also by the prospect of his travels, and by the godsend of
a six months’ leave of absence. He was a little proud, too, at having had this personal attention paid to him by the Secretary of
State. All this was very gratifying. But that which gratified him
was not so charming to his brother clerks. They had never enjoyed the privilege of leaving that weary office for six months.
They were not allowed to occupy themselves in contemplating
an envelope. They were never specially mentioned by the Secretary of State. Of course there was a little envy, and a somewhat general feeling that Bagwax, having got to the weak
side of Sir John Joram, was succeeding in having himself sent
out as a first-class overland passenger to Sydney, merely as
a job. Paris to be seen, and the tunnel, and the railways through
Italy, and the Suez Canal — all these places, not delightful to
the wives of Indian officers coming home or going out, were
an Elysium to the post-office mind. His expenses to be paid for
six months on the most gentleman-like footing, and his salary
going on all the time! Official human nature, good as it generally is, cannot learn that such glories are to be showered on one
not specially deserving head without something akin to enmity. The general idea, therefore, in the office, was that Bagwax
would do no good in Sydney, that others would have been better than Bagwax — in fact, that of all the clerks in all the departments, Bagwax was the very last man who ought to have
been selected for an enterprise demanding secrecy, discretion,
and some judicial severity.
Curlydown and Bagwax occupied the same room at the office in St. Martin’s-le-Grand; and there it was their fate in
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
life to arrange, inspect, and generally attend to those apparently unintelligible hieroglyphics with which the outside
coverings of our correspondence are generally bedaubed.
Curlydown’s hair had fallen from his head, and his face had
become puckered with wrinkles, through anxiety to make
these markings legible and intelligible. The popular newspaper, the popular member of Parliament, and the popular novelist — the name of Charles Dickens will of course present
itself to the reader who remembers the Circumlocution office — have had it impressed on their several minds — and
have endeavoured to impress the same idea on the minds of
the public generally — that the normal Government clerk
is quite indifferent to his work. No greater mistake was ever
made, or one showing less observation of human nature. It is
the nature of a man to appreciate his own work. The felon who
is made simply to move shot, perishes because he knows his
work is without aim. The fault lies on the other side. The policeman is ambitious of arresting everybody. The lawyer would
rather make your will for you gratis than let you make your
own. The General can believe in nothing but in well-trained
troops. Curlydown would willingly have expended the whole
net revenue of the post-office — and his own — in improving the machinery for stamping letters. But he had hardly
succeeded in life. He had done his duty, and was respected by
all. He lived comfortably in a suburban cottage with a garden,
having some private means, and had brought up a happy family in prosperity; — but he had done nothing new. Bagwax, who
was twenty years his junior, had with manifest effects, added
a happy drop of turpentine to the stamping-oil — and in do-
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JOHN CALDIGATE
ing so had broken Curlydown’s heart. The ‘Bagwax Stamping
Mixture’ had absolutely achieved a name, which was printed
on the official list of stores. Curlydown’s mind was vacillating
between the New River and a pension — between death in
the breach and acknowledged defeat — when a new interest
was lent to his life by the Caldigate envelope. It was he who
had been first sent by the Postmaster-General to Sir John Joram’s chambers. But the matter had become too large for himself alone, and in an ill-fated hour Bagwax had been consulted.
Now Bagwax was to be sent to Sydney — almost with the appointments of a lawyer!
They still occupied the same room — a fact which infinitely increased the torments of Curlydown’s position. They
ought to have been moved very far asunder. Curlydown was
still engaged in the routine ordinary work of the day, seeing
that the proper changes were made in all the stamps used
during the various hours of the day — assuring himself that
the crosses and letters and figures upon which so much of
the civilisation of Europe depended, were properly altered and
arranged. And it may well be that his own labours were made
heavier by the devotion of his colleagues to other matters. And
yet from time to time Bagwax would ask him questions, never
indeed taking his advice, but still demanding his assistance.
Curlydown was not naturally a man of ill-temper or an angry
heart. But there were moments in which he could hardly abstain from expressing himself with animosity.
On a certain morning in August, Bagwax was seated at his
table, which as usual was laden with the envelopes of many
letters. There were some hundreds before him, the marks
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
on which he was perusing with a strong magnifying-glass. It
had been arranged that he was to start on his great journey in
the first week in September, and he employed his time before he went in scanning all the envelopes bearing the Sydney postmark which he had been able to procure in England. He spent the entire day with a magnifying-glass in his
hand; — but as Curlydown was also always armed in the same
fashion, that was not peculiar. They did much of their work
with such tools.
The date on the envelope — the date conveyed by the impression, to which so much attention had been given — was
10th May 1873. Bagwax had succeeded in getting covers bearing dates very close to that. The 7th of May had been among
his treasures for some time, and now he had acquired an entire
letter, envelope and all, which bore the Sydney impression of
the 13th May. This was a great triumph. ‘I have brought it
within a week,’ he said to Curlydown, bending down over his
glass, and inspecting at the same time the two dates.
‘What’s the good of that?’ asked Curlydown, as he passed
rapidly under his own glass the stamps which it was his duty to
inspect from day to day.
‘All the good in the world,’ said Bagwax, brandishing his
own magnifier with energy. ‘It is almost conclusive.’ Now
the argument with Bagwax was this — that if he found in
the Sydney postmarks of 7th May, and in those of 13th May,
the same deviations or bruises in the die, those deviations must
have existed also on the days between these two dates; — and
as the impression before him was quite perfect, without any
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JOHN CALDIGATE
deviation, did it not follow that it must have been obtained in
some manner outside the ordinary course of business?
‘There are a dozen stamps in use at the Sydney office,’ said
Curlydown.
‘Perhaps so; or, at any rate, three or four. But I can trace as
well as possible the times at which new stamps were supplied.
Look here.’ Then he threw himself over the multitude of envelopes, all of which had been carefully arranged as to dates, and
began to point out the periods. ‘Here, you see, in 1873, there
is nothing that quite tallies with the Caldigate letter. I have
measured them to the twentieth part of an inch, and I am sure
that early in May ‘73 there was not a stamp in use in the Sydney office which could have made that impression. I have eighteen Mays ‘73, and not one of them could have been made by
the stamp that did this.’ As he spoke thus, he rapped his finger
down on the copy of the sacred envelope which he was using.
‘Is not that conclusive?’
‘If it was not conclusive to keep a man from going to prison,’
said Curlydown, remembering the failure of his own examination, ‘it will not be conclusive to get him out again.’
‘There I differ. No doubt further evidence is necessary and
therefore I must go to Sydney.’
‘If it is conclusive, I don’t see why you should go to Sydney
at all. If your proof is so perfect, why should that fellow be
kept in prison while you are running about the world?’
This idea had also occurred to Bagwax, and he had thought
whether it would be possible for him to be magnanimous
enough to perfect his proof in England, so as to get a pardon
from the Secretary of State at once, to his own manifest injury.
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
‘What would satisfy you and me,’ said Bagwax, ‘wouldn’t satisfy
the ignorant.’ To the conductor of an omnibus on the Surrey
side of the river, the man who does not know what ‘The Castle’ means is ignorant. The outsider who is in a mist as to
the ‘former question,’ or ‘the order of the day,’ is ignorant to
the member of Parliament. To have no definite date conveyed
by the term ‘Rogation Sunday’ is to the clerical mind gross
ignorance. The horsey man thinks you have been in bed all
your life if the ‘near side’is not as descriptive to you as ‘the
left hand.’ To Bagwax and Curlydown, not to distinguish postmarks was to be ignorant. ‘I fear it wouldn’t satisfy the ignorant,’ said Bagwax, thinking of his projected journey to Sydney.
‘Proof is proof,’ said Curlydown. ‘I don’t think you’ll ever
get him out. The time has gone by. But you may do just as much
here as there.’
‘I’m sure we shall get him out. I’ll never rest in my bed till
we have got him out.’
‘Mr. Justice Bramber won’t mind whether you rest in your
bed or not — nor yet the Secretary of State.’
‘Sir John Joram —’ began Bagwax. In these discussions Sir
John Joram was always his main staff.
‘Sir John Joram has got other fish to fry before this time. It’s
a marvel to me, Bagwax, that they should give way to all this
nonsense. If anything could be done, it could be done in half
the time — and if anything could be done, it could be done
here. By the time you’re back from Sydney, Caldigate’s time
will be half out. Why don’t you let Sir John see your proof?
You don’t want to lose your trip, I suppose.’
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JOHN CALDIGATE
Caldigate was languishing in prison, and that poor, nameless lady was separated from her husband and he had the proof
lying there on the table before him — sufficient proof, as he
did in his heart believe! But how often does it fall to the lot of
a post-office clerk to be taken round the world free of expense?
The way Curlydown put it was ill-natured and full of envy.
Bagwax was well aware that Curlydown was instigated solely
by envy. But still, these were his own convictions — and Bagwax was in truth a soft-hearted, conscientious man.
‘I do think it ought to be enough for any Secretary of State,’
said he, ‘and I’ll go to Sir John Joram to-morrow Of course,
I should like to see the world; — who wouldn’t? But I’d rather
be the means of restoring that fellow to his poor wife, than
be sent to all the four quarters of the globe with a guinea aday for personal expenses.’ In this way he nobly made up his
mind to go at once to Sir John Joram.
CHAPTER XLVIII
SIR JOHN JORAM’S CHAMBERS
Mr. Curlydown’s insinuations had been very cruel, but also
very powerful. Bagwax, as he considered the matter that night in
his bed, did conscientiously think that a discreet and humane
Secretary of State would let the unfortunate husband out of
prison on the evidence which he (Bagwax) had already collected. My readers will not perhaps agree with him. The finding of
a jury and the sentence of a judge must be regarded seriously
by Secretaries of State, and it is probable that Bagwax’s theory
would not make itself clear to that great functionary. A good
many ‘ifs’ were necessary. If the woman claiming Caldigate as
her husband would swear falsely to anything in that matter,
then she would swear falsely to everything. If this envelope
had never passed through the Sydney post-office then she
would have sworn falsely about the letter — and therefore
her evidence would have been altogether false. If this postmark had not been made in the due course of business, and
on the date as now seen, then the envelope had not passed
regularly through the Sydney office. So far it was all clear to
the mind of Bagwax, and almost clear that the postmark could
not have been made on the date it bore. The result for which he
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JOHN CALDIGATE
was striving with true faith had taken such a hold of his mind,
he was so adverse to the Smith-Crinkett interest, and so generously anxious for John Caldigate and the poor lady at Folking,
that he could not see obstacles; — he could not even clearly
see the very obstacles which made his own going to Sydney
seem to others to be necessary. And yet he longed to go to Sydney with all his heart. He would be almost broken-hearted if
he were robbed of that delight.
In this frame of mind he packed all his envelopes carefully
into a large hand-bag, and started in a cab for Sir John Joram’s
chambers. ‘Where are you going with them now?’ Curlydown
asked, somewhat disdainfully, just as Bagwax was starting.
Curlydown had taken upon himself of late to ridicule the envelopes, and had become almost an anti-Caldigatite. Bagwax
vouchsafed to make him no reply. On the previous afternoon
he had declared his purpose of going at once to Sir John, and
had written, as Curlydown well knew, a letter to Sir John’s
clerk to make an appointment. Sir John was known to be in
town though it was the end of August, being a laborious man
who contented himself with a little partridge-shooting by
way of holiday. It had been understood that he was to see Bagwax before his departure. All this had been known to Curlydown, and the question had been asked only to exasperate.
There was a sarcasm in the ‘now’ which determined Bagwax to
start without a word of reply.
As he went down to the Temple in the cab he turned over in
his mind a great question which often troubles many of us.
How far was he bound to sacrifice himself for the benefit of
others? He had done his duty zealously in this matter, and now
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
was under orders to continue the work in a manner which
opened up to him a whole paradise of happiness. How grand
was this opportunity of seeing something of the world beyond
St. Martin’s-le-Grand! And then the pecuniary gain would be
so great! Hitherto he had received no pay for what he had done.
He was a simple post-office clerk, and was paid for his time by
the Crown — very moderately. On this projected journey all
his expenses would be paid for him, and still he would have
his salary. Sir John Joram had declared the journey to be quite
necessary. The Secretary of State had probably not occupied
his mind much with the matter; but in the mind of Bagwax
there was a fixed idea that the Secretary thought of little else,
and that the Secretary had declared that his hands were tied
till Bagwax should have been to Sydney. But his conscience
told him that the journey was not necessary, and that the delay
would be cruel. In that cab Bagwax made up his mind that he
would do his duty like an honest man.
Sir John’s chambers in Pump Court were gloomy without, though commodious and ample within. Bagwax was now
well known to the clerk, and was received almost as a friend.
‘I think I’ve got it all as clear as running water, Mr. Jones,’ he
said, feeling no doubt that Sir John’s clerk, Mr. Jones, must feel
that interest in the case which pervaded his own mind.
‘That will be a good thing for the gentleman in prison,
Mr. Bagwax.’
‘And for the lady; poor lady! I don’t know whether I don’t
think almost more of her than of him.’ Mr. Jones was returning to his work, having sent in word to Sir John of this visitor’s arrival. But Bagwax was too full of his subject, and of his
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