“But I don’t have the energy for that kind of marathon effort,” insisted Chris.

Juchster wrote upon the green card again and said, “Christ!   If you are that badly off, you ought to be on the invalid pension, not the dole!”

From the front of the building came the sound of a decapitated head falling into a basket.   Then Chris remembered that the Nazis did not use the guillotine, so that it must have been the sound of something, which had dropped onto the wooden floorboards, amplified by the building’s eerie acoustics.

“Then how would 1 go about getting onto the invalid pension?” asked Chris.

Juchster rummaged through the three drawers of the desk, until finding a form pad, then said to Chris, “I can give you an application form, if you like.   But I don’t fancy your chances very much.”

Certain that he could hear the sound of storm troopers goose-stepping at the front of the building, Chris asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you cannot get the invalid pension unless you can convince them that you are at least eighty-one Percent incapacitated,” explained Juchster.

Amazed, Chris thought, ‘How can they distinguish between eighty-one Percent incapacitation, and a mere eighty point-nine Percent?’   Aloud, he said, “Then why the hell did you suggest it in the first place?”

Ignoring Chris’s question, Juchster said, “So as it stands I suggest that you forget all about trying to latch onto the invalid pension, unless you want to step in front of a green tram first.”

“So where does that leave us?” asked Chris.

Juchster wrote upon the very bottom of the green form, then said, “Well, I don’t know about us, but it leaves you with two clear alternatives: accept the Hyde Road job, or get thrown off the dole!”

“Thrown off the dole?” asked Chris in disbelief, almost toppling off the stool as he sat forward too quickly.

“That’s the way it goes: you can only reject three jobs offered to you before you lose the dole.   This is the third job you have knocked back.”

“But none of the jobs you’ve offered me were any good!   One of them required me to do heavy lifting all day, which my kidney trouble won’t allow.   Another required me to be on my feet all day long.   Now this one would mean walking nearly three hours every day.”