His name wasn't Kyle then, although it
was something very like that. I must see if any of the old ledgers are
about! I'd like to see what the Imperator's name was when His Most
Imperial Majesty was an apprenticed nobody!

* * * * *

October 12, 2119
New San Francisco

I found it! Buried in stacks of dust behind the old printing press that
was once the heart of my _Beacon-Sentinel_. There were others there too.
Spent a delightful morning with them, reading back through those old
account books.

I wonder whatever happened to Hastings? And Drew? Best linotype men I
ever had. They became pilots, or something, as I recall. Too bad, too
bad. They could have had such brilliant futures, both of them. Why they
felt they must ally themselves with the non-thinking, muscle-flexing
variety of mankind--of which our Ruler is an excellent example--I'll
never know.

Ah, yes, Kyle! In those days he was Kilmer Jones. I don't remember him
too well, actually, except for the day I fired him.

I suppose he was right in changing his name. We couldn't very well have
an Imperator named Kilmer the First, or Jones the First. Much too
common, not at all in keeping.

Gawky fellow--that Kilmer. When Bard brought me a sample of his work--I
guess I'll have to call it that--we both had a good laugh over it!
Atrocious spelling! Couldn't follow the proofreader's marks. Indeed, I
wonder if the fellow could even read! The punctuation! And the grammar!

I called the boy to the office that morning--or was it the next day? No
matter. I called him in and told him, as kindly as possible, that I
thought there were other vocations to which he might be better suited.
The irony of it! Kilmer Jones--Kyle I!

And he stood there, I remember, with those seventeen-year-old hands that
were all knuckles and bone and chapped skin, twisting those hands and
shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"Please, Mr. Booth," he said, his voice cracking. "I ain't got no other
job in mind. I wanna be a noospaper man. I ain't got no--"

If not for that "ain't got no," I think I might have relented. But no
one is going to ruin the English language as he did! Not in my offices!

I took him to task severely for his offensive usage, outlined a correct
example of what he had attempted to say, gave him a brief lesson in the
history of