colloquy; and
lastly, when he fetched a large shawl and hung it across the window
outside, so that they were wholly screened from view, I found it no
light effort to believe that it was to shield her from the cold blast,
as he informed me.

I sought (without great eagerness) the companionship of Kibosh. "Do you
not fear," I asked him, "that we may not find ourselves able to reach an
agreement as to the system by which this respelling should proceed?"

"What would hinder it?" he inquired.

"Of course, our present spelling is but a rag-bag of lawlessness," I
replied, for I was growing fond of my description of it. "But great
authors and newspapers have spread it round the globe. The sun never
sets on English spelling. We must join the great English universities
with us. We must join Canada, India, Australia. We must do it right."

"England will have to follow us!" he declared.

"If you'll watch England," I said, "I think you'll find she has her own
ideas about that."

"Then our publishers and writers will ignore England," he replied.

"If you'll watch our publishers and writers," I again said, "you'll see
they'll be slow to let go their English market by making books that
would be illegible throughout the British Empire."

"What are authors, anyhow?" he demanded. "It is our business men who are
our glory."

"If you'll watch our business men," I repeated, not without acerbity,
"you'll find they have London correspondents, and they'll not care to
run two sorts of spelling with their stenographers."

Kibosh thought awhile, and then, with his gentle smile, he again removed
his chickle and placed it on the window-sill.

"But, nevertheless, Masticator will have gained his point," he said.

"Scarcely so, if a system fails us, and we do nothing," I suggested.

He seemed not to hear me. "And all of the committee, every member, will
have gained the point as well."

"You'll pardon me, but what is the point?" I now asked him.

"And the English language," he continued more and more gently, "it will
have gained the point, too."

"I must confess," I said, "to utter ignorance of your meaning."

Kibosh smiled for a long while, looking at me very kindly.

"You will readily appreciate," he at length began, "that the greatest
need of mankind is Publicity. It is as essential to the German Emperor
as it is to the female society leader, or the trick mule. We are no
exceptions, we leaders of thought, and teachers of youth, a