After Mill left, it didn't take long for Roebuck to get up and politely say goodbye to Arthur and Held.

"I don't know what John is going to do, but if he doesn't succeed, hopefully I'll make some progress on my side. It just so happens that I have an appointment with Mr. Bentham's secretary, Mr. Edwin Chadwick, and I will have to talk to him about you and see what we can do. ”

With that, Robuck smiled and picked up his hat and left the café.

As soon as Roebuck left, Elder leaned back on the chair in the café: "Look, look!" Our University of London students still have energy! As soon as you open your mouth, even the East India Company and the Westminster Review are up and running. ”

Compared to Elder's inexplicable self-confidence, Arthur seemed unusually calm.

He took a sip of the bitter coffee, tempered by the milky taste: "I thought that I could get rid of the world by changing places, but now it seems that I have to pay attention to this thing wherever I go." The government's promotions are all about proximity and distancing, and this is still the situation after the reform, and I don't know how corrupt and chaotic the government has been in the era before the civil service reform. ”

Elder took a cookie and threw it in his mouth: "The previous era? It was a great time, and I heard my uncle say that at the end of the 18th century, when he was just an ordinary captain, the Admiralty was almost openly buying and selling.

Charlie Middleton, the Comptroller of the Admiralty, receives 300 quines a year just by selling his titles, and he usually does not go to work by himself, but takes out 500 pounds from his salary to hire someone to help him handle the work, and he takes the rest of his salary and the income from selling officials to gamble on horses and play cards, and his life is not chic. ”

Arthur pinched his chin and said: "I'm not surprised that there is such a thing in the Admiralty, after all, your salary is high there, if you change to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, I'm afraid it won't be so easy to fool, right?" ”

Elder raised an eyebrow and said, "Yes! It is true that the salaries of the Officers of the Home Office and their subordinate departments are notoriously low, and that is why your Chief Clerk of the Home Office will spend £60 on a replacement job.

On the other hand, he was paid to work for the senior civil servants of the Chancellor's Hall, and I had seen in the report on the work of the Parliament that he seemed to be able to reap £227 3 a year in this part-time job, which was much higher than his own job. ”

When Arthur heard this, he couldn't help but stare at Elder with wide eyes for a long time.

Elder was uncomfortable with his eyes, and asked dissatisfied, "What do you think I'm doing?" ”

Arthur put down his coffee cup and apologized to Elder ashamedly: "Older, it seems that I misunderstood you in the past. ”

"What did you misunderstand me?" Elder chewed on the biscuit absently.

Arthur sighed, "I used to think that you would only read some erotic literature at most, but I really didn't expect you to read the report on the work of the council." ”

Elder snorted and let out a sigh, "What do you know?" The report on the work of the council is much dirtier than erotic literature, and sometimes it is written about things that are not as good as the sewers of the East End. Arthur, feel sorry for me, that once aspiring young man Elder Carter is dead, and now standing in front of you is only a shell full of desires, and the subject of corruption has always been of greatest interest to me.

Like embezzlement of public funds to earn interest or something, it can only be regarded as a pediatric within the civil service. If it weren't for the report on the work of the Parliament, I would have never imagined that they would be able to turn corruption into an art.

They first recorded the treasury books according to Arabic numerals, then transcribed them into official Latin, and then made the first changes when they reported to the Ministry of Finance, and then they made another change when the Ministry of Finance made the budget, and then they made changes when the budget was distributed to the departments, and so on and so on, and the accounts were transcribed and transcribed a lot, and it was normal for them to make mistakes, so they took the opportunity to move around in these wrong accounts.

By this hand, the War Office had a deficit of forty or fifty thousand pounds in its annual accounts, and the tax collectors of the Land Office in 1780 had paid a whopping three hundred thousand pounds less than they had actually paid. ”

Arthur couldn't help but raise his eyebrows when he heard this: "Although I know that the financial audit offices of various departments usually eat dry food, but in 1780, the income of the Land Office alone could be shorted by 390,000 pounds, is this too exaggerated?" Even if the Audit Office were to hire a substitute, it would not be incompetent to this extent, would it? ”

Elder slammed his fist on the table with a curse: "Audit Office? Those guys are the fattest eaters! When we were fighting the North American Revolutionary War with those rebels, the two auditors of the War Office collected 16,565 pounds and 10,331 pounds respectively in tips a year. ”

When Arthur heard this, he couldn't help but laugh and scolded: "Elder, you have too much memory, it's all in the single digits." If you can put this memory to scientific research, even Sir Isaac Newton, the only sun in your heart, will not be able to shake your position in the slightest. ”

Hearing this, Elder nodded approvingly: "To be honest, I have always thought that the reason why Sir Isaac Newton was able to do calculus is inextricably linked to his appointment as the director of the Royal Mint. If I can sit in his position, my math skills will definitely be greatly improved. I've never been interested in making calculations on scratch paper, but if I were to count money, I would have to overcome the poor mathematical acumen that had been passed down from generation to generation in the Carter family. ”

Arthur smiled and replied, "But instead of being a chancellor, you might as well have the cheekiness to ask your uncle to borrow money to go to the Bar House." As long as you can get a lawyer's license, if you enter the Chancellor's Hall in the future, I guarantee that you will make a lot of money.

As you know, since the overthrow of Charles I in 1640 and the establishment of a long parliament, judges have been paid very well. Back then, their salaries were fixed at £1,000 a year, and this money was paid directly from customs revenues, not even from the Treasury's budget.

After the enactment of the Act of Succession to the Throne in 1701, in addition to the fixed salary, there were many additional legal incomes, such as the commission fees of the court clerks, judgment fees, the costs of the agreement suit, office supplies, and a host of additional allowances that I cannot describe. All the messy income added up to at least five or six hundred pounds.

Of course, it is not excluded that some judges can also obtain wealth from illegal sources that we do not know, for example, when the "Beer Act" was not passed a while ago, the local magistrate was also required to issue a permit to apply for a tavern business license. ”

According to Elder character, his eyes would have lit up when he heard these things, but Mr. Carter, who had just been talking about corruption, fell into silence.

He frowned as he stirred the cup with a spoon, as if he was listening to something.

Arthur looked at him like this, and was about to ask.

Unexpectedly, Elder suddenly raised his hand to interrupt his words, and his ears twitched: "Shhhh Don't make a sound, I seem to hear a beautiful lady crying. ”

"There's a lady crying?"

Arthur glanced up around the café, which was early in the morning, with few customers, and he quickly spotted the object of Held's statement.

In the seat in the corner of the east side of the hall, he found a lady wearing a beige wide-brimmed hat.

When the Red Devil, who was leaning against the window, saw her, he couldn't help but press his hands to his chest and began to recite poems praising her appearance

"Jet-black hair, plainly combed to the back of the head and tied into a bow.

A pair of large black eyes under the two eyebrows were full of sadness, and the straight nose bridge with arrogance complemented the arched arc of the lips.

The quiet and serene red lips are tightly closed, the bleak life has robbed you of your smile, and the breadth of your forehead cannot change the narrowness in his heart.

Oh, my girl, why should you entrust your fate to others?

With your broad forehead full of determination, try to imagine who is the Messiah who can save your destiny? ”

Arthur, the first literary critic of Britain, couldn't help but glance at him and commented: "Fate, Messiah, quite mystic!" ”

Elder thought that Arthur was mocking him, and couldn't help but stare at him: "Arthur, what did you kid say?" ”

"Nothing." Arthur raised his chin and raised slightly at the lady who was silently wiping tears in the corner: "The lady who is crying, it seems that we know each other." ”

"You know?"

Elder stared at the sight, and he lowered his voice and scolded, "Arthur, fuck, how do you know a woman?" Are you really the Paganini of Scotland Yard? A merry music master?

Playing the violin just begging for food? European touring just a no-brainer? Paganini's hands grasping the wings of music, one into the filthy casino, the other into the filthy curtain of a prostitute.

And you, your delicate Fiore sword moves, one into the filthy East End, the other where are you going? ”

Arthur pressed his hands down to signal him to calm down: "Don't get excited, Held, I have one hand in the East End, and the other is going to dedicate to the field of electromagnetism. Of course, I can't guarantee that this plot will still be the future. Because if I were to be dismissed this time, the hand I had drawn from the East End might have been considered to be stretched out somewhere else. ”

Elder held out a finger and warned, "Your hand is not allowed to go anywhere until my problem is resolved." Alexander's already has a son, and Charles is also secretly fighting with a mysterious girl, if you get ahead of me again, how can I have the face to live at Lancaster Gate? ”

Arthur apologized: "You can move out without a face, for this, I have never advocated forcing you, I think humans should have the right to move freely." ”

"Ah......" Elder covered his face and said with a sad expression, "Arthur, I didn't expect you to value our friendship so much, are you forcing me to sleep on the streets?" ”

"Sleeping on the streets? You're my friend, how could I watch you sleeping on the streets? ”

When Elder heard this, he snorted and clasped his hands around and said, "You still have a little conscience." ”

Seeing him like this, Arthur smiled and said, "Elder have you forgotten my profession?" I'm a police officer, and if I caught you sleeping on the streets, I'd put you in jail. You know, especially in this kind of area next to Hyde Park. ”

When Elder heard this, he was about to say a few words to Arthur.

Unexpectedly, the bell rang in the café, and a gentleman in a black top hat walked in outside the door.

Arthur glanced at the man, and suddenly pressed the hat on his head down a little, just to cover his own eyes.

Elder was stunned by him: "What are you doing?" It's just a joke, and you don't need to feel guilty like this. ”

Arthur didn't say much about Elder Thick, he just muttered, "Viscount Melbourne? What is he doing here? ”

(End of chapter)