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public arose as one man and remarked that they were capable of finding out merit for themselves and no longer required the Department; and they took large stones, and bad eggs, and dead cats, and fagots of wood, and proceeded to the Boom Department; and it was in vain that the head of the Department came out on the balcony and pleaded that the Booming System, as practised by the Press, had nothing to do with the finding-out of merit; for the public smashed the windows and burned the offices, and abolished the Boom Department.

"A choice witticism in the rates and taxes."

However, nobody required Booming now, as absence of ability was no longer a bar to fame; and things worked far more happily than they cever had under the old system. Authors and others no longer pined under want of appreciation; on the contrary, they were always wildly surprised at the wonderful things the public discovered in their work; and as for the public, they were vastly contented.

It's the true system—there's not a question about that.