When Abiel Whitworth went to the assessor’s office to get fifty per cent. taken from the taxable value of his house and lot, he stepped jauntily into the room. Then he shuddered. “I want to see the assessor,” he faltered.

Now, the man who had lifted his head when he stepped on the rug before the official desk filled him with a vague alarm. He was of only medium size, not well put together: he had a curling black mustache, a heavy, monkey-like face, a miraculously clean shave, a political diamond in his shirt, new clothes and an air of brutal leisure that reminded one of a sphinx, or an alderman. But it was the shining, glassy, far seeing eye, with its lashes turned back, that startled Mr. Whitworth. It was so cold, so empty of expression, so thoroughly uncanny, that it scared him. After a long, searching look, in which he did not seem to breathe, the assessor bent his head and resumed the study of a paper that lay on the desk before him.

Mr. Whitworth waited; a clock ticked and buzzed somewhere in the room, emphasizing the silence: then he gulped and repeated, “I want to see Mr. Flannery, the assessor.”

Some seconds elapsed this time before the man at the desk raised his head again and transfixed him with another stare: then he resumed his reading. The man was wrong, in some way. Was he mad? He might be a vampire, or a ghoul, for he did not look or act like a human being. Mr. Whitworth became quite chilly in his blood.

“I don’t believe I want to see the assessor,” he said, huskily, and was about to turn away and run, when a solitary clerk, who had been toiling over a ledger in the back of the room, hastened forward and said, “Beg pardon, sir, but I was in the middle of a calculation and wanted to finish it. Can I do anything for you?”

“I wanted to see Mr. Flannery.”

“This represents Mr. Flannery,” said the clerk, “and represents him remarkably well, in more than one way. He is, if I may so call him, the official Mr. Flannery.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I dare say not. We don’t let everybody know about it.” And, calmly lifting Mr. Flannery’s head from his shoulders, the clerk reached down his neck and adjusted something inside of him. The sound of the clock stopped, and Mr. Flannery did not lift his head again after it was replaced.

Mr. Whitworth gasped.

“You see, sir,” added the clerk, “Mr. Flannery was appointed by Mayor Rourke, at the request of Boss McManus. It was supposed that he could read and write, for he has been quite successful in managing primary elections, and has made a good lot of money in the saloon business. But he can’t read and he is busy, so what was the use in his coming to the office? He had this wax figure of himself made to sit at this desk, and there is a spring attachment that works whenever anyone stands on that rug. The figure, you see, lifts its head once in twenty seconds, and that is all that Flannery does when he is here. The taxpayers have been kicking so hard about absentees that the boss and others have been stirring the office holders up and Flannery thinks it’s only right to make this much of a concession. Very few find out that it is not Flannery, except that he swears more. If you want to see the sure enough Flannery go down to his saloon on Columbus avenue. He comes here every second Saturday—he is very good about that—to get his pay.”

“Seems to me you are giving him away pretty freely.”

“Well, to tell the truth, I’m hoping to get his job myself, under the new mayor.”

In which Narrative an Allegory may perhaps be discovered without a Powerful Mind or a Microscope.

Charles M. Skinner.