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He had to deal with the rents of
episcopal properties, to correspond with clerical claimants, and to be
at home with the circumstances of underpaid vicars and perpetual
curates with much less than 300 pounds a-year; but yet he was as jolly
and pleasant at his desk as though he were busied about the collection
of the malt tax, or wrote his letters to admirals and captains instead
of to deans and prebendaries. Brooke Burgess had risen to be a senior
clerk, and was held in some respect in his office; but it was not
perhaps for the amount of work he did, nor yet on account of the
gravity of his demeanour, nor for the brilliancy of his intellect. But
if not clever, he was sensible; though he was not a dragon of official
virtue, he had a conscience and he possessed those small but most
valuable gifts by which a man becomes popular among men. And thus it
had come to pass in all those battles as to competitive merit which had
taken place in his as in other public offices, that no one had ever
dreamed of putting a junior over the head of Brooke Burgess.


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