passed, during which I had worked onward at the index of my
forthcoming volume, when my memory was jogged by the arrival of a new
absurdity:--

Why not Heffer?

Like its predecessor, this card went at once into my basket. I had
nearly finished the B's in my index before the mail brought the
following:--

It ought to be your custom now
To simplify, and spell plough plow;
Therefore write quickly on your cuff
From this day forth to spell tough tuff.
A third must follow these first tu,
So you will always spell through thru,
Nor in the midst of things leave off,
But joyfully now make cough coff.
By this time you must clearly noa
Dough can't be doe, do, dow, but doa.

Well, if they purposed to reform our spelling, which has always been a
mere rag-bag of lawlessness, I hoped that they would do it right; but I
was too deeply immersed in completing the index of my forthcoming volume
to spend thought upon this question; nor did I court interruption. My
waste-paper basket, therefore, received another willing contribution.
And when presently the clue to these cards reached me in the following
telegraphic message, just at the outset of my morning's work:--

CHICKLE UNIVERSITY,
Arkansopolis, October 6, 1906.
English spelling rotten to the core. Help us.
MASTICATOR B. FELLOWS.

I responded, not without satire:--

Utterly prostrated by news. Helpless.
THOMAS GREENBERRY.

And thinking that thus I was rid of him, I proceeded quietly with the
index of my forthcoming volume.

But Masticator B. Fellows, president and proprietor of Chickle
University, had not done with me so easily. Since his street-boyhood,
sixty years ago, this ardent personality ('tis thus the daily press
describes him) had made his own way, and had his own way; he was his
own capital, and there is no record of his ever having sunk a cent of
it. Of habits strictly pure, he had never seen a card or a drop of
liquor that he had touched, and he had never seen a dollar that he had
not touched. He had organized every industry along his path, from
paper-selling, boot-blacking, and so upward to his organized lobby at
Washington, through which he had caused a heavy tariff to be put upon
every commodity necessary to the American people. It was he who had
advised his brother organizers to keep Religion on the free list,
because, as he assu