Then the usher read the advertisement.
"What! shake the hall mat!" cried the candidate. "Why I could do that little job on my head!"
So there being no other applicant for the post, the backwoods' ignoramus was appointed office-sweeper at a couple of hundred pounds a year.
"Rather high wages," said the Chairman to himself, as he went home on the top of an omnibus; "but what can one expect when we educate all the children at the cost of the rates. Last year there was an additional farthing; this year we have to pay five shillings, and goodness only knows how much it will be hereafter!"
And as he thought this, the Chairman (in the names of the rest of the ratepayers) heartily cursed the School Board.
RETURNED EMPTY.
Old Mayfly (who had dropped his Flask further down stream, and has just had it returned to him by Honest Rustic). "Dear me! Thank you! Thank you!" (Gives him a Shilling.) "Don't know what I should ha' done without it!" (Begins to unscrew top.) "May I offer you a——"
Honest Rustic. "Well, thank y', Sir, but me and my Mate, not seein' a Howner about, we've ta'en what there were inside."