Tarkass's last, long-drawn war-whoop.
Her bitterest enemies--and she had many--could hardly accuse Mrs. Hauksbee of
wasting her time. Otis Yeere was one of those wandering "dumb" characters,
foredoomed through life to be nobody's property. Ten years in Her Majesty's
Bengal Civil Service, spent, for the most part, in undesirable Districts, had
given him little to be proud of, and nothing to bring confidence. Old enough
to have lost the first fine careless rapture that showers on the immature
'Stunt imaginary Commissionerships and Stars, and sends him into the collar
with coltish earnestness and abandon; too young to be yet able to look back
upon the progress he had made, and thank Providence that under the conditions
of the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the "dead-centre" of his
career. And when a man stands still, he feels the slightest impulse from
without. Fortune had ruled that Otis Yeere should be, for the first part of
his service, one of the rank and file who are ground up in the wheels of the
Administration; losing heart and soul, and mind and strength, in the process.
Until steam replaces manual power in the working of the Empire, there must
always be this percentage--must always be the men who are used up, expended,
in the mere mechanical routine.
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