“Oh, very well,” said One, and he waved his arms in disgust. He waved his arms about his head in everything. “To go into the Civil Service is not to achieve peace, it is to die. Go to Rex and tell him I say you are to be placed.”
“I come from Rex to ask you to place me,” I said.
“Well, go back to him and say that it is all right, and I will see him about it. Good-morning, good-bye, and good luck,” he said, in a tone which indicated that he would have been delighted to add, “go to hell,” or something like it.
I went immediately to Rex, who pitied me as one of the many kinds of jackasses who fail to take advantage of the great opportunities offering to ride on the other fellow’s back. I gave him Minister One’s message, and said things to him relative to my wishes, hopes, desires and condition. He looked at me sorrowfully.
I was a large, bare-faced man with long hair; neither ordinary or commonplace to look upon. To wear my hair a little long is my taste and Muriel’s. Rex wore his hair cropped like a pork butcher and the beard upon his face trimmed to a pattern. “Chacun à son goût.” He was like a great many other people in thinking that matters of taste are matters of fact, and that style and gait not of this or that type must necessarily be bad taste.
“John,” he said, “get your hair cut, and you shall have the position you desire.”
“Consider it cut,” I said. “If thy hair offend thy protector, cut if off; it will grow again.” And we both laughed.
We were both mere boys under forty. It flattered him to be referred to as my protector. Not only in the matter of hair did we disagree. We looked with different eyes on all subjects; yet we were friends, and I had his sympathy and help, which he gave me as if I were his brother.
I had what used to be considered as claims upon a position in the Civil Service, to wit:
Item: I had worked for the Minister of Ways and Means.