Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг - Wressley of the Foreign Office (Unabridged)

"Wressley of the Foreign Office" is an short story by Rudyard Kipling: One of the many curses of our life out here is the want of atmosphere in the painter's sense. There are no half-tints worth noticing. Men stand out all crude and raw, with nothing to tone them down, and nothing to scale them against. They do their work, and grow to think that there is nothing but their work, and nothing like their work, and that they are the real pivots on which the administration turns. Here is an instance of this feeling. A half-caste clerk was ruling forms in a Pay Office. He said to me:-"Do you know what would happen if I added or took away one single line on this sheet?" Then, with the air of a conspirator:-"It would disorganize the whole of the Treasury payments throughout the whole of the Presidency Circle! Think of that?"