Three people were sitting in a lobby adjoining an office of MI5, two men and a woman.

They were waiting to be interviewed for a post of ‘assassin’.

Eventually, a gentleman entered the lobby and asked the first candidate for the job to follow him into the office; the first man rose and followed the interviewer.

The candidate fluently passed on every test that the interviewer put to him. “Now,  for your final test, please enter the door to your right, and shoot the person sitting in the chair”.  The interviewer ordered – “But I must tell you – it is your wife”!

The candidate looked a little ‘taken aback’, but, he did as he was told and entered the room.

A few moments later, the candidate returned to the interviewer, with tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry – but I just could not do it”! He left the building . . .

The interviewer re-entered the lobby and asked for the next candidate to follow him. The second man rose and followed the interviewer into the office.

Like the previous candidate, this man also passed his tests fluently, whereupon he too was asked to enter an adjoining room and shoot the seated person within it. Once again, the interviewer informed him of the relationship of the seated person – who was also his spouse.

The second candidate entered the room. In even less time, than his predecessor had taken, he too emerged with tears falling from his and bemoaning that he could never in a million years, shoot his wife! This candidate also left the building . . .

Feeling a little disgruntled with the candidates ‘head office’ had sent him, the interviewer once more entered the lobby asked the next candidate to follow him and returned to his office.

The woman didn’t maintain the exceptional marks of her predecessors, but she did pass.

Almost without taking his eyes from the clipboard that he was perusing, the interviewer gave the woman the same instructions that he had given the last two gentlemen (by this time, the interviewer  was in desperate need of a cup of tea) “Please be  aware, that the person you will find seated in the room, is your husband”!

Without a second glance at her, the interviewer contacted his secretary via the intercom, and asked for a cup of tea.

Moments later, as  the secretary arrived and placed the cup and saucer onto her bosses desk . . . The sounds of shots being fired . . . followed by the furniture breaking . . . moans and groans issuing forth from the adjoining room . . .  filled the air!!

The woman candidate came back into the office . . . “Why didn’t you b******s  tell me that they were ‘blanks’ – I had to batter him to death with a chair leg” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . !

(She got the job)!!!