Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Taking Advice

When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow
Tiber that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one
of the Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a
piece of news with which they had no nearer concern than with any
other piece of news--any other Accident or Offence--in the English
papers. Some laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that
the post was virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his
name was good enough for it; some, and these the more solemn
political oracles, said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen
himself, and that the sole constitutional purpose of all places
within the gift of Decimus, was, that Decimus should strengthen
himself. A few bilious Britons there were who would not subscribe
to this article of faith; but their objection was purely
theoretical. In a practical point of view, they listlessly
abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other Britons
unknown, somewhere, or nowhere. In like manner, at home, great
numbers of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty
consecutive hours, that those invisible and anonymous Britons
'ought to take it up;' and that if they quietly acquiesced in it,
they deserved it. But of what class the remiss Britons were
composed, and where the unlucky creatures hid themselves, and why
they hid themselves, and how it constantly happened that they
neglected their interests, when so many other Britons were quite at
a loss to account for their not looking after those interests, was
not, either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the shore of the
black Thames, made apparent to men.

Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on
it, with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the
setting displays the jewel. Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the
place. Mr Merdle wished him to take it, and he had taken it. She
hoped Edmund might like it, but really she didn't know. It would
keep him in town a good deal, and he preferred the country. Still,
it was not a disagreeable position--and it was a position. There
was no denying that the thing was a compliment to Mr Merdle, and
was not a bad thing for Edmund if he liked it. It was just as well
that he should have something to do, and it was just as well that
he should have something for doing it. Whether it would be more
agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen.

Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things
of small account, and really enhancing them in the process. While
Henry Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole
round of his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the
town of