It was curious that this act of politeness should be followed immediately by an act of discipline:--
"The same hour which brought this good-natured invitation brought also a demand for my latch-key of the private door of the General Post Office. The Postmaster-General has given up his own latch-key, and has required every one else to do the same. I am not sure that this is not a necessary precaution."
Be this as it may, the safeguard was not long maintained, the latch-keys being quietly redistributed in the interregnum that followed Lord Hardwicke's retirement, and never afterwards reclaimed.
The necessity for my appearing at Lord Hardwicke's party in court dress led to a discovery, which, though somewhat annoying at the time, I can afford to laugh at now. Calling for correspondence which had taken place three or four years before with the Lord Chamberlain, and which, as I understood, for I had never seen the papers, regulated my official costume, I found that, while Colonel Maberly was placed in the third, I had been assigned to the fifth or lowest class, the Secretaries for Ireland and Scotland, my acknowledged inferiors in position, being placed in the fourth. I had no difficulty in deciding on the authorship of this arrangement, nor in conjecturing why, contrary to rule, the papers had been withheld. On my calling the Postmaster-General's attention to the matter, he took it up warmly, expressing an opinion that I should be placed in the same class with Colonel Maberly, and directing me to prepare a minute accordingly, though, as formalities had to be gone through, the change could not be made in time for the dinner.[98] I suppose, however, Lord Hardwicke must have forgotten the matter. My own attention was soon absorbed in things of more importance; and nothing was done until the matter was set right of itself on my promotion to the sole secretaryship. I could not but admire at the dinner the discreet arrangement made by our host to prevent jealousy between Colonel Maberly and me, the former being placed at one end of the table, the latter at the other, while his lordship sat precisely in the middle.
To return to ordinary matters. Certainly my Post Office experience had never yet long run smooth, and the ripple soon came:--