“You mean that you can find me one?” I says and my heart is give a jump
with excitement.
“Why of course,” he says. “I am the Grand Mogul of Jobs,” he says. “I
carry lists of them around with me I sometimes have more jobs than I
can find people,” he says.
And sure enough he pulls out some papers from his pocket and there is
a long printed list and he says these is civil service jobs for which
there is to be examinations. “And let us see now,” and he studies it
and he reads, “Geographer,” and he says, “Do you think you would like
to be a Geographer?” And I says, “My God what does that do?” And then
he reads, “Geologist,” and he says, “That might sound pretty good.”
But I says, “How can I pass an examination for such jobs as them?” and
he says, “You do not have to worry about that we can pay somebody to do
that for you,” he says, and then he reads, “Grammarian,” and he says,
“There now I think that would be a fine job for you there is something
cultured about being a Grammarian.”
“But dear me,” I says, “what would I have to do?” And he says, “You
will not have to do nothing,” he says, “there is always an assistant
that does the work for half as much,” he says. And I says, “Is that
what they call economy?” and he says, “It is a system,” he says.
“How could you keep politics going unless people had jobs in between
elections? But it is common sense you can see that politicians do not
have no time to learn to be geographers and geologists and grammarians
and so there have got to be assistants that know that sort of work and
keep the assistants’ jobs all the time no matter who gets elected,” he
says.
And then he says, “You will be Grammarian to the Bureau of Indian
Affairs of the Department of the Interior,” he says. And I says, “Can
they put somebody off on a department like that?” And he says, “Oh
sure it is done all the time there is the private secretary to the
Spokeslady there was no provision for such but She wanted one so they
put it off on the Interstate Trade Commission,” he says.
And he goes on to study the list and he says, “This is not a very good
job for the salary is only $26 per week.” “Man alive,” I says, “that
is more money than I have ever had all at once in my life I think!” He
says, “You will find your tastes grow and in a year you will be wanting
your own car,” he says.
And then he thinks a bit and he says, “Maybe we can get you an
allowance for travelling expenses.” I says, “Does a Grammarian have
to travel?” and he says, “We will have you made a Field Grammarian
and then you will be able to go wherever you want to and that will
be necessary anyhow because you see if it stays hot like this very
long the Spokesman will be moving to His summer home and I will have
to go there and so will you and it will be much better if you have a
government position then because it will not look so bad if we are saw
together in a small town.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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