No matter that it was utterly irreconcilable
with the nature of things and course of events that the wretched
honourable gentleman could possibly produce a Precedent for
this--William Barnacle would nevertheless thank the honourable gentleman
for that ironical cheer, and would close with him upon that issue, and
would tell him to his teeth that there Was NO Precedent for this. It
might perhaps have been objected that the William Barnacle wisdom was
not high wisdom or the earth it bamboozled would never have been made,
or, if made in a rash mistake, would have remained blank mud. But
Precedent and Precipitate together frightened all objection out of most
people. And there, too, was another Barnacle, a lively one, who had leaped
through twenty places in quick succession, and was always in two or
three at once, and who was the much-respected inventor of an art
which he practised with great success and admiration in all Barnacle
Governments.
This was, when he was asked a Parliamentary question on
any one topic, to return an answer on any other. It had done immense
service, and brought him into high esteem with the Circumlocution
Office. And there, too, was a sprinkling of less distinguished Parliamentary
Barnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and were going through
their probation to prove their worthiness. These Barnacles perched upon
staircases and hid in passages, waiting their orders to make houses
or not to make houses; and they did all their hearing, and ohing, and
cheering, and barking, under directions from the heads of the family;
and they put dummy motions on the paper in the way of other men's
motions; and they stalled disagreeable subjects off until late in the
night and late in the session, and then with virtuous patriotism cried
out that it was too late; and they went down into the country, whenever
they were sent, and swore that Lord Decimus had revived trade from a
swoon, and commerce from a fit, and had doubled the harvest of corn,
quadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented no end of gold from flying
out of the Bank. Also these Barnacles were dealt, by the heads of the
family, like so many cards below the court-cards, to public meetings and
dinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts of services on the part
of their noble and honourable relatives, and buttered the Barnacles on
all sorts of toasts.
And they stood, under similar orders, at all sorts
of elections; and they turned out of their own seats, on the shortest
notice and the most unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and they
fetched and carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate
heaps of dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service. And there
was not a list, in all the Circumlocution Office, of places that might
fall vacant anywhere within half a century, from a lord of the Treasury
to a Chinese consul, and up again to a governor-general of India, but as
applicants for such places, the names of some or of every one of these
hungry and adhesive Barnacles were down.