The clerk throws this epistle into the Balaam box and listlessly draws
out another. "Don't you think," the writer says, "that a blink of
sunshine would be a blessing--and a drop or two of warm rain to bring
the fruit on, and the garden stuff? What is the good of having a Clerk
of the Weather at all if he cannot attend better to his duties?"

That letter is also pitched into the Balaam box, and a third drawn--a
delightful little cocked-hat of a letter, written on delicately-perfumed
paper, probably with a dove's quill. She--of course it is a she!--is
going to a garden-party on Tuesday week; would he, the Clerk of the
Weather, kindly see that not a drop of rain falls on that day? Only
bright sunshine, and occasional cloudlets to act as awnings and temper
its heat.

The Clerk with a smile places that letter aside for further
consideration, and goes on drawing. All and everyone of them either
demand impossibilities or merely write to abuse the poor Clerk for some
fancied dereliction of duty. One wants rain, another growls because
there has been too much wet. This one is grumbling at the fogs, this
other at the sunshine; this one suggests snow for a change, and this
other begs for a thunderstorm to clear the atmosphere.

And so on and so forth. No wonder the bewildered Clerk jumps up at last
and over-turns the table, letters and all, and audibly expresses a
desire to let all the winds loose upon the world at once, to revel and
tear and do as they like, to bring blinding snow from the far north and
drenching rains from the torrid zone, to order a select assortment of
thunderstorms from the Cape of Good Hope, and a healthy tornado from the
Indian Ocean. But he thinks better of it, burns all the letters, and
goes quietly on with his day's duty.