Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/315

 288

THE GREEN BAG

cut off. She cried bitterly when Robbins questioned her, and begged to be allowed to continue. The Governor sent for her, and during the interview sent me out to get a five-pound note changed. Later in the day he directed Robbins to make a substan tial increase in the girl's wages. Guiltily feeling that I had been the cause of the girl's distress, I could have worshipped the grand old man for the happy outcome of it all. There were absolutely no conveniences in these buildings, either modern or medieval. In most of them not even a water pipe could be found. In a court-way leading off one side of the square was a small, onestory building containing lavatories and other conveniences for the general use of all the lawyers and their clerks. Water for drinking, and perhaps a hand basin, was obtained from a pump in the square, it being the duty of the charwoman to fill a couple of big pitchers there every morning. Gas was not used, wax candles being sub stituted. One small fireplace only was supposed to furnish heat for our office, a room about forty feet by twenty! My pen was at the extreme end of the room, and I shivered with cold continually from October until April. My strenuous efforts to keep a roaring fire in that grate met with many a "call down" from Robbins, who was scorched close by. Of appliances which were then considered absolute necessities in commercial offices we had none, not even a copying-press. All letters were copied by hand into a big green sheepskin-covered book. How I hated that book! It was one of my duties to copy those letters. Robbins once ventured to suggest a copying-press to the Governor. We heard thunderous growlings in the sanctum, and when Robbins emerged his face was slightly flushed. He did not say what had hap pened, but simply told us that no press would be permitted. I do not desire to give the impression that any feeling of economy prompted this

poverty of appliances. It was not so. It was the ultraconservatism of a very old, generous, and high-minded gentleman, who had spent over half a century under the conditions I have described. The intro duction of telephone or typewriter in his office would have been, I think, as serious to him as an attack on the British Constitu tion. I have no doubt he would have viewed it in the same light. His dealings with tradesmen were char acterized by the same disposition. Our stationery supplies came in as ordered, al ways from the same dealer, and without any attempt to compare prices with others. No invoices accompanied the deliveries. Once a year the bill came in, and without any scrutiny as to quantity or prices a check was drawn for the total. Mr. Boulton would as soon have thought of keeping his head covered in the presence of a lady as of scrutinizing the bill of a tradesman with whom he had dealt for forty or fifty years. I have mentioned that our office force consisted of the chief and four clerks. These were a chancery clerk, conveyancing clerk, outdoor man, and copying clerk. I was the office boy, commonly called "The Infant." At no time was there sufficient work to keep these men busy. At no time was there more work than would have sufficed for two hustling men; but the traditions of the office called for five men, there had been five men employed in the days of old Mr. Pierce, and no doubt Mr. Boulton would have thought that the institutions of the nation were crumbling did his chancery clerk undertake any outdoor work, or the conveyancing clerk engross his own verbose compositions. In addition to this regular force there were two articled clerks, scions of wealthy county families. Stated in language which they would have described as "beastly bad form," they were "apprenticed for five years to learn law business." A premium of two hundred guineas (some