"I want to show you," he said kindly, "an office-dial to hang on your door, so that when you are away your clients will know where you are, and when you will return. For instance, by turning the thumb-screw, the dial will show: "At court, "At dinner, "At supper, "At bank, "At post-office, etc., etc., etc., with the time you will return. There are sixty-four combinations which cover all cases of this kind necessary for the man of business, and it is no doubt the greatest achievement of mechanical ingenuity. Price, $ 1.50." "No," said Mr. Biteoffmorethanhecouldchaw, "there are twenty-seven reasons why it would not be advisable for me to purchase your automatic bulletin. Firstly, I have but one client, and he can not read. He would only come and look at the indicator and kick it all to pieces and swear and go away. Secondly, your machine is incomplete, anyway. The inventor has signally failed to meet the popular want. It would only be an aggravation to the average attorney. "I can think of a hundred things that ought to be added to a truthful indicator. Supposing that I have gone to the circus, or to a meeting of the vestry, or suppose I am drunk, or at a reunion of the Y. M. C. A., or out to eat a clove with a member of the bar, or at a camp meeting, or putting up the clothes-line at home? Or, going still further, suppose I am wringing out the clothes, or setting bread, or taking a bath, or wrestling with the delirium tremens, or toning down a rebellious corn, or putting Paris green on my squash bugs, or inspecting microscopically the homoeopathic fragment of ice that the kind-hearted ice man has prescribed for me? "Or, going still further into detail, supposing that I am dead and cannot state with any degree of accuracy where I am or when I shall return, do you suppose that I would herald a glittering $1.50 lie to the world by saying that I was at the barber shop and would be back at 10:30? "Do you think I would pay $1.50 for a machine to vicariously proclaim to the broad universe that I was at the bank, when I have no business with the bank? "Do you suppose that I would advertise that I was at the post office when I was at the beer garden, or assert that I was at the court house, when, as a matter of fact, I was at that moment having a preparation of lemon-peel and other chemicals arranged for myself and another invalid in a cool retreat down town? "No, sir! I spurn you and your cast-iron prevaricator, I promised my dying mother, who afterwards recovered, that I would never lie by machinery. "If I cannot lie enough to keep up with the growing demand, I will resign like a man, and not call to my aid a cheap Jim Crow, hand-me-down-liar, costing $1.50 only. "Always do right, and then you will never be put to shame. "If you wish, you can leave the hall door ajar as you go out the main entrance." Exeunt advance agent at upper left hand entrance, orchestra playing something soft and yielding. SOME POSTOFFICE FIENDS.