he next day, and I
was amazed when I beheld spreading out before me the vast institution
where we were to hold our sittings. Chickle University covered, with its
grounds and buildings, four square miles. Swift electric cars ran
everywhere by routes so well planned that less than four minutes were
consumed between the two most distant points. The several thousand
buildings were of a uniform pattern, but lettered on the outside, so as
easily to be distinguished: House of Latin, House of Chiropody, House of
Marriage and Divorce, and so forth. Everything was taught here, and had
its separate house; and the courses of instruction were named on a plan
as uniform as the buildings: Get French Quick, Get Religion Quick, Get
Football Quick, and so forth. The University was open to both sexes. I
saw great crowds of young men and women trying to push their way into
the House of Marriage and Divorce; and Kibosh informed me that this
course was the second in popularity, and in such active demand that a
corps of ninety-six instructors was kept lecturing continuously day and
night. The football course had overflowed its own building so copiously
that it was also filling the houses of Latin, Greek, Music, History, and
Literature.

"And what do those students do?" I inquired.

"There have been none," he answered. "We have accommodations for two
million students; but if this spelling reform fails to prove
the--ahem--you'll remember what we said about rock-smiting, Mr.
Greenberry--fails to prove the--er--attraction that Masticator
anticipates, any idle houses in this University plant can be readily
turned into the Chickle plant, which adjoins it."

I asked him, would they not meet great difficulty in finding professors
for two million students?

"Professors are our lightest expense," he replied. "We can always pick
them up for next to nothing."

So saying, Kibosh led us to the library; and here were some gentlemen
assembled whose appearance clearly proclaimed them to be profound
scholars, and who were to be of our spelling committee. While Kibosh
made us known to each other, and we exchanged our formal greetings, the
eye of each scholar sought the eye of every other scholar with that
thirsty look an author wears, when the hope for compliments upon his
writings flutters in his breast. But we were true professors, all of us,
and not one had read a word that any of the others had ever written.

Deceit should always be discouraged, nay,