ABSTRACT
The Circumlocution Office was the most important Department under Government. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving, how not to do it. Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to over-top all the public departments; and the public condition had risen to be, what it was. It is true that how not to do it was the great study and object of all public departments and professional politicians all round the Circumlocution Office. The spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything.
