and higher
(You could 'a' heard me down the glen):
"_No, sir! I want Maria!_"

"An' now," says I, "the shaft'll strike:
He'll let _that_ statement stay so!"
He looked at me astonished-like,
Then yelled: "_Why didn't you say so?_"

THE UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE OFFICE

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

"Mr. Brief," said the Idiot the other morning as the family of Mrs.
Smithers-Pedagog gathered at the breakfast table, "don't you want to be
let in on the ground floor of a sure thing?"

"I do if there's no cellar under it to fall into when the bottom drops
out," smiled Mr. Brief. "What's up? You going into partnership with Mr.
Rockefeller?"

"No," said the Idiot. "There isn't any money in that."

"What?" cried the Bibliomaniac. "No money in a partnership with
Rockefeller?"

"Not a cent," said the Idiot. "After paying Mr. Rockefeller his dividend
of 105 per cent. of the gross receipts and deducting expenses from
what's left, you'd find you owed him money. My scheme is to start an
entirely new business--one that's never been thought of before
apparently--incorporate it at $100,000, of which I am to receive $51,000
in stock for the idea, $24,000 worth of shares to go to Mr. Brief for
legal services and the balance to be put on the market at 45."

"That sounds rich," said Mr. Brief. "I might devote an hour of my time
to your scheme some rainy Sunday afternoon when there is nothing else to
do, for that amount of stock, provided, of course, your scheme has no
State's Prison string tied to it."

"There isn't even a county jail at the end of it," observed the Idiot.
"It's clean, clear and straight. It will fill a long felt want, and, as
I see it, ought to pay fifty percent dividends the first year. They say
figures don't lie, and I am in possession of some that tell me I've got
a bonanza in my University Intelligence Office Company."

"The title sounds respectable," said Mr. Whitechoker. "What is it, Mr.
Idiot--a sort of University Settlement Scheme?"

"Well--yes," said the Idiot. "It is designed to get University graduates
settled, if you can call that a University Settlement Scheme. To put it
briefly, it's an Intelligence Office for College graduates where they
may go for the purpose of getting a job, just as our cooks, and butlers
and valets and the rest do. If there's money in securing a place at good
wages for the ladies who burn our steaks and promote indigestion for us,
and for the gentlemen w