adequate.

This same collector had the pleasing habit of honoring the men he
loved, among whom the Bibliotaph was chief, with brightly written
letters which filled ten and fifteen half-sheets. But the average
number of words to a line was two, while a five-syllable word had
trouble in accommodating itself to a line and a half, and the sheets
were written only upon one side. The Bibliotaph's comment was: 'Henry
has a small brain output, but unlimited influence at a paper-mill.'

Of all the merry sayings in which the Bibliotaph indulged himself at
the expense of his closest friend this was the most comforting. A
gentleman present was complaining that Henry took liberties in
correcting his pronunciation. 'I have no doubt of the occasional need
of such correction, but it isn't often required, and not half so often
as he seems to think. I, on the other hand, observe frequent minor
slips in his use of language, but I do not feel at liberty to correct
him.'

The Bibliotaph began to apply salve to the bruised feelings of the
gentleman present as follows: 'The animus of Henry's criticism is
unquestionably envy. He probably feels how few flies there are in your
ointment. While you are astonished that in his case there should be so
little ointment for so many flies.'

The Bibliotaph never used slang, and the united recollections of his
associates can adduce but two or three instances in which he sunk
verbally so low as even to _hint_ slang. He said that there was one
town which in his capacity of public speaker he should like to visit.
It was a remote village in Virginia where there was a girls' seminary,
the catalogue of which set forth among advantages of location this:
that the town was one to which the traveling lecturer and the circus
never came. The Bibliotaph said, 'I should go there. For I am the one
when I am on the platform, and by the unanimous testimony of all my
friends I am the other when I am off.'

The second instance not only illustrates his ingenuity in trifles, but
also shows how he could occasionally answer a friend according to his
folly. He had been describing a visit which he had made in the
hero-worshiping days of boyhood to Chappaqua; how friendly and
good-natured the great farmer-editor was; how he called the Bibliotaph
'Bub,' and invited him to stay to dinner; how he stayed and talked
politics with his host; how they went out to the barn afterwards to
look at the stock; what Greeley said to him and