Where these people get their cooks, I never could make out! It is easy enough to understand that fish and soup, your sirloin and your woodcock, could be well and carefully dressed, but who devised that exquisite little entrée, what genius presided over that dish of macaroni, that omelette, or that soufflé? Whence, besides, came the infinite taste of the whole meal, with its few dishes, served in an order of artistic elegance? And that butler, too—how quiet, how observant, how noiseless his ministration; how steady his decanter hand! Where did they find him? And that pale sherry, and that Chablis, and that exquisite cup of Mocha? Don't tell me that you or I can have them all as good—that you know his wine-merchant, and have the receipt for his coffee. You might as well tell me you could sing like Mario because you employ his hairdresser. No, no; they who accomplish these things are peculiar organizations. They have great gifts of order and system, the nicest perceptions of taste, considerable refinement, and no small share of sensuality. They possess a number of high qualities in miniature, and are, so to say, “great men seen through the wrong end of a telescope.”
Of this the Rev. Dr. Millar was a pleasing specimen. With that consciousness of having done everything possible for your comfort which makes a good host, he had a racy gratification in quietly watching your enjoyment. Easily and unobtrusively marking your taste for this or preference for that, he would contrive that your liking should be gratified, as though by mere accident, and never let you know yourself a debtor for the attentions bestowed upon you. It was his pride to have a perfect establishment: would that all vanity were as harmless and as pleasurable to others! And now to the dinner, which, in our digression, we are forgetting.
“Try these cutlets, doctor,” interposed the host. “It is a receipt I brought back with me from Provence; I think you 'll find them good.”
“An over-rich, greasy sort of cuisine is the Provençale,” remarked Ogden.
“And yet almost every good cook of France comes from that country,” said Layton.
Ogden raised his large double eye-glass to look at the man who thus dared to “cap” a remark of his.
“I wish we could get out of the bastard French cookery all the clubs give us nowadays,” said the Colonel. “You neither see a good English joint nor a well-dressed entrée.”
“An emblem of the alliance,” said Layton, “where each nation spoils something of its own in the effort to be more palatable to its neighbor.”
“Apparently, then, Sir, the great statesmen who promoted this policy are not fortunate enough to enjoy your sanction?” said Ogden, with an insolent air.
“My sanction is scarcely the word for it. They have not, certainly, my approval.”
“I hope you like French wines, though, doctor,” said the host, eager to draw the conversation into some easier channel. “Taste that Sauterne.”
“It only wants age to be perfect,” said the doctor, sipping. “All these French white wines require more time than the red.”
Ogden again looked through his glass at the dispensary doctor who thus dared to give judgment on a question of such connoisseurship; and then, with the air of one not easily imposed on, said—
“You have travelled much abroad, perhaps?”
Layton bowed a silent assent.
“I think I saw a German diploma amongst the papers you forwarded to our committee?” said Karstairs.
“Yes, I am a doctor of medicine of Gottingen.”
“A university, I verily believe, only known to Englishmen through Canning's doggerel,” said Ogden.
“I trust not, sir. I hope that Blumenbach's name alone would rescue it from such oblivion.”
“I like the Germans, I confess,” broke in the Colonel. “I served with Arentschild's Hanoverians, and never knew better or pleasanter fellows.”
“Oh, I by no means undervalue Germans!” said Ogden. “I think we, at this very moment, owe to them no small gratitude for suggesting to us the inestimable practice of examination for all public employment.”
“In my mind, the greatest humbug of an age of humbug!” said Layton, fiercely.
“Nay, doctor, you will, I 'm certain, recall your words when I tell you that my friend here, Mr. Ogden, is one of the most distinguished promoters of that system.”
“The gentleman would confer a far deeper obligation upon me by sustaining than by withdrawing his thesis,” said Ogden, with a sarcastic smile.
“To undertake the task of sustaining the cause of ignorance against knowledge,” said Layton, quietly, “would be an ungrateful one always. In the present case, too, it would be like pitting myself against that gentleman opposite. I decline such an office.”
“So, then, you confess that such would be your cause, sir?” said Ogden, triumphantly.
“No, sir; but it would partake so much the appearance of such a struggle, that I cannot accept it. What I called a humbug was the attempt to test men's fitness for the public service by an examination at which the most incapable might distinguish himself, and the ablest not pass. The system of examination begot the system of 'grinding,'—a vulgar term for a more vulgar practice, and a system the most fatal to all liberal education, limiting study to a question-and-answer formula, and making acquirements only desirable when within the rubric of a Government commission. Very different would have been the result if the diploma of certain recognized educational establishments had been required as qualification to serve the State; if the law ran, 'You shall be a graduate of this university, or that college, or possess the licentiate degree of that school.'”
“Your observations seem, then, rather directed against certain commissioners than the system they practise?” said Odgen, sarcastically.
“Scarcely, sir. My experience is very limited. I never met but one of them!”
The Colonel laughed heartily at this speech—he could n't help it; and even the host, mortified as he was, gave a half-smile. As for Ogden, his pale face grew a shade sicklier, and his green eyes more fishy.
“To question the post-office clerk or the landing waiter,” continued Layton, with fresh warmth—for when excited he could rarely control himself—“to test some poor aspirant for eighty pounds per annum in his knowledge of mathematics or his skill in physical geography, while you make governors that cannot speak correctly, and vice-governors whose despatches are the scorn of Downing Street; to proclaim that you want your tide-waiter to be a moral philosopher, but that the highest offices in the State may be held by any political partisan active enough, troublesome enough, and noisy enough to make himself worth purchase; you demand logarithms and special geometry from a clerk in the Customs, while you make a mill-owner a cabinet minister on the simple showing of his persevering; and your commissioners, too—'Quis custodiet, ipsos custodes!'”
“You probably, however, submitted to be examined, once on a time, for your medical degree?” asked Ogden.
“Yes, sir; and that ordeal once passed, I had ample leisure to unlearn the mass of useless rubbish required of me, and to address myself to the real cares of my profession. But do you suppose that if it were demanded of me to subject myself to another examination to hold the humble post I now fill, that I should have accepted it?”
“I really cannot answer that question,” said Ogden, superciliously.
“Then I will, sir. I would not have done so. Eighty pounds a year is a very attractive bribe, but it may require too costly a sacrifice to win it.”
“The neighborhood is a very poor one,” struck in Millar, “and, indeed, if it had not been for the strenuous exertions of my friend Colonel Karstairs here, we should never have raised