The Scarlet Letter

The greater part of my officers were Whigs. It was well for

their venerable brotherhood that the new Surveyor was not a

politician, and though a faithful Democrat in principle, neither

received nor held his office with any reference to political

services. Had it been otherwise--had an active politician been

put into this influential post, to assume the easy task of

making head against a Whig Collector, whose infirmities withheld

him from the personal administration of his office--hardly a man

of the old corps would have drawn the breath of official life

within a month after the exterminating angel had come up the

Custom-House steps. According to the received code in such

matters, it would have been nothing short of duty, in a

politician, to bring every one of those white heads under the

axe of the guillotine. It was plain enough to discern that the

old fellows dreaded some such discourtesy at my hands. It

pained, and at the same time amused me, to behold the terrors

that attended my advent, to see a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten

by half a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so

harmless an individual as myself; to detect, as one or another

addressed me, the tremor of a voice which, in long-past days,

had been wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet, hoarsely

enough to frighten Boreas himself to silence. They knew, these

excellent old persons, that, by all established rule--and, as

regarded some of them, weighed by their own lack of efficiency

for business--they ought to have given place to younger men,

more orthodox in politics, and altogether fitter than themselves

to serve our common Uncle. I knew it, too, but could never quite

find in my heart to act upon the knowledge. Much and deservedly

to my own discredit, therefore, and considerably to the

detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my

incumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down

the Custom-House steps. They spent a good deal of time, also,

asleep in their accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted

back against the walls; awaking, however, once or twice in the

forenoon, to bore one another with the several thousandth

repetition of old sea-stories and mouldy jokes, that had grown

to be passwords and countersigns among them.

The discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the new Surveyor

had no great harm in him. So, with lightsome hearts and the

happy consciousness of being usefully employed--in their own

behalf at least, if not for our beloved country--these good old

gentlemen went through the various formalities of office.

Sagaciously under their spectacles, did they peep into the holds

of vessels. Mighty was their fuss about little matters, and

marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness that allowed greater ones

to slip between their fingers Whenever such a mischance

occurred--when a waggon-load of valuable merchandise had been

smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their

unsuspicious noses--nothing could exceed the vigilance and

alacrity with which they proceeded to lock, and double-lock, and

secure with tape and sealing-wax, all the avenues of the

delinquent vessel. Instead of a reprimand for their previous

negligence, the case seemed rather to require an eulogium on

their praiseworthy caution after the mischief had happened; a

grateful recognition of the promptitude of their zeal the moment

that there was no longer any remedy.