“Seventy four pounds?” I gasped. This was beyond the pale. I wasn’t averse to paying for the advertisement but there is paying and then there is paying. And this was the latter.

“It’s five pounds for your basic seventeen words plus a pound per word on top of that” he explained.

“Then we must prune it drastically” I told him. “And the sooner the better.”

“Do we need ‘cultured’?” he asked.

“I suppose not – it would help attract the right sort of person but I suppose other vetting procedures could be put in place to weed out the unsuitable applicants” I concurred.

“I’m not convinced by ‘local’ either – I’ve lived here all my life but I don’t think I’ve seen you in the village before. You’re the Dennis Brent impersonator aren’t you? Which hardly makes you local to Bendaton.”

“Hmm. I suppose we could lose ‘local’ too. Have you any objection to ‘gentleman’?”

“I’ll take ‘gentleman’. ‘Seeks’ is ok because it’ll help us reach our religious diversity quota. No one looks too carefully at these things. ‘Assistance’ and ‘From’ are pure filler – like padding out a sausage with sawdust. ‘Keen’ is nice, ‘willing’ is too suggestive, ‘young’ is now illegal but ‘man’ is being proudly reclaimed by masculinists and therefore is only an unacceptably sexist term if used by women.”

“You’re very good at this” I said, adding a warm smile in the hope that I might get eighteen or nineteen words for my five pounds, providing they were ones which met his approval.

“I think we’ll have to lose ‘no women please’ – save that sort of thing for the interview – and perhaps replace ‘in the undertaking of’ with ‘for’. ‘General personal duties’ sounds too gay, ‘specialist’ will keep away the riff raff but ‘research’ will send those left to sleep. Avoid strenuous words like ‘preparation’ and boring words like ‘documentation’ but keep exciting and glamorous words like ‘publication’. Remove, burn and dance on the ashes of ‘journals of historic interest’.”

“Just to confirm, this is going to save me money isn’t it?” I asked.

“Is the salary negotiable?” he continued.

“It certainly is – if the successful applicant is insistent on a salary I am willing to negotiate about it. With luck I’ll be able to talk them out of it but if the bullet must be bitten then I’m prepared to offer well over six thousand pounds on target earnings.”

“We’ll leave that bit out then. Ditto the terms and conditions stuff. We don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.”

“I can assure you that there will be both terms and conditions” I told him.

“Mmm. The foreign travel stuff is good but you said you don’t want women applying – that’s the sort of thing that women go for. The chance to swan around saying their boss takes them abroad and they have exotic affairs in luxury hotels while everyone else is stuck here in the rain.”

“I can assure you there would be none of that in my employ. The mere idea of it. Luxury hotels? Perish the thought.”

“Why would martial arts skills be an advantage?”

“There are occasions when person or persons unknown takes it into their head to become physical with me, possibly bundling me out of a shop or a hotel or a news conference or a synagogue. On those occasions my employee would become involved on my side of the equation and even the score.”

“I think we can do without it – that’s another one for the interview I think. ‘Willingness to die for me is essential’ is probably a bit off putting. People like ‘willingness’ and ‘essential’ is a good word for telling prospective applicants that you’re in charge and your standards are high. I just feel we could do without the death part. But that might just be me.”

“No no” I conceded, “you make a sound point.”

“‘Apply is writing’ is a good idea – studies have shown that seventy percent of people can’t write so you’re immediately excluding the scummier side of the gene pool. ‘No time wasters’ is a double-edged sword – most time wasters don’t consider themselves time wasters and those that do enjoy wasting the time of those who particularly don’t like time wasters. And I really must advise you against prohibiting ‘h-o-m-o-s-e-x-u-a-l-s’.”

“Don’t tell me you’re” I held myself in disgust, “one of them”.

“We have to count it as eleven words because you put a hyphen between each letter. I’ve nothing against banning bummers but you might not think it worth eleven quid.”

“Good point, sonny, good point.”

“Apart from that it is pretty good.”

“What does it say now?” I asked.

“‘Gentleman seeks keen man for specialist publication. Willingness essential. Apply in writing. Definitely no Arabs.’”

“That won’t do” I protested. “I’m paying for seventeen words and that’s only fifteen. I demand two more words.”

“’Willingness to serve essential’?” he offered.

“Could I squeeze ‘No fatties’ in there somewhere as I have one overweight colleague and would be reluctant to have another? I would be both confusing and bad for my house.”

“Just hold your interviews at the end of a narrow corridor. Then you can sift out all but those whose external dimensions match or better your own.”

“You really are a perceptive and sound young man” I told him.

“I know what we can do” he announced. He picked up his sheet of paper, screwed it up and threw it into his waste paper basket.

“Have you run mad?” I cried.

“I’ll take it” he replied.

“You’ve already tossed it” I pointed out.

“I mean I’ll take the job.”

“I can’t just give you the job as my employee. What about all the other applicants?”

“It’ll cost you a fiver to place that advert. Not to mention all the time you’ll have to waste complying with employment regulations. Whereas I am free from all such red tape.”

“When can you start?”

“Give me ten minutes to finish my sandwich.”

“Excellent. This has worked out rather well.”

“Excuse me for a moment” he said, getting out of his chair and walking over to a door marked ‘editor’.

“What are you doing?”

“If I’m leaving then I might as well tell Mr Plinge that he’s a cockmuncher.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m leaving and he’s a cockmuncher.”

“Ah. I’ll be outside. What did you say your name was, sonny?”