In order to apply for the job (I've forgotten now for what) I had   
to marry the Second Mayor's daughter by twelve noon. The   
order arrived three minutes of. 

I already had a wife; the Second Mayor was childless: but I   
did it. 

Next they told me to shave off my father's beard. All right.   
No matter that he'd been a eunuch, and had succumbed in   
early childhood: I did it, I shaved him. 

Then they told me to burn a village; next, a fair-sized town;   
then, a city; a bigger city; a small, down-at-heels country;   
then one of "the great powers"; then another (another, an- 
other)—In fact, they went right on until they'd told me to   
burn up every man-made thing on the face of the earth! And   
I did it, I burned away every last trace, I left nothing, nothing   
of any kind whatever. 

Then they told me to blow it all to hell and gone! And I blew   
it all to hell and gone (oh, you can bet I did). . . 

Now, they said, put it back together again; put it all back the   
way it was when you started. 

Well. . . it was my turn then to tell them something! Shucks,   
I didn't want any job that bad.