THE POWER OF DIGNITY.
Reading edition
THE human heart, in all its expansive, limitless capacity for enjoyment, takes greater pleasure in nothing than in witnessing a portly, solemn-visaged man, the embodiment of natural dignity, importance in clothes, administer a scathing rebuke to some “smart” petty government official. One morning just such a personification of innate dignity loomed up at the stamp window of the post-office, and glared in gloomy and majestic displeasure at the busy clerk who registered a letter before he sprang to the window and asked the stately customer what he wished. The great man did not answer for several moments. He gazed steadily and impressively over the clerk’s head, and then asked, in ponderous tones:
“Is there any one hear-r-r-e who attends to business?”
The embarrassed clerk blushed, faltered for a moment, then, recovering himself, said, with characteristic and national cheerfulness, becoming an official of the Republic:
“I will see, sir.”
And he disappeared. He went into the other departments, tortured a carrier with an original conundrum, and heard a good story in the mailing room, and came back.
“Yes, sir,” he said to the great one, “there are, in addition to myself, three clerks in the letter department, one in the mailing room, four carriers, three route agents, the mail driver and a janitor.”
“Ah-h-h! I am glad there are so many. I may in all that number find one who is at his post.”
And then he looked as impressive as a special agent, and was silent for three minutes, while the humbled clerk awaited his orders, and impatient men behind him fidgeted and grumbled. Finally, the great man said with deep solemnity:
“I wish one three-cent stamp.”
The clerk tore off the stamp and held it, waiting for the consideration. The great man made a somewhat longer pause than usual; he felt in his various vest pockets; he gradually lost his look of impressive rebuke; his chest caved in, and he assumed the aspect of an ordinary frail mortal, and he said:
“Ah—the fact is—I’m sure—ah—in short, I find that I have carelessly left my purse at home—can you kindly—”
The clerk, with the faintest suggestion of triumph in his eye, brusquely waved the great man aside with—
“Sorry for you, sir; but the clerk who sells stamps on credit is not in. What does the next man want?”
And the great man, as he backed through the smiling crowd who stood around with money in their hands, felt somehow that his rebuke had been thrown away, and feared that if the case went to the jury without argument it would very probably bring in a verdict for the Government.