but his voice stuck as usual.

"You should get a chauffeur," said Cottsill, severely, to him.

"Hup, hup. Compromise," finished Egghorn.

"Ah, yes, gentlemen, there we have it!" said Kibosh, earnestly.
"Compromise is progress. Let us all accept one another. Thus the cause
will profit."

His exhortation produced a brief, a very brief, lull. Each looked at the
neighboring blackboards in silence; and Kibosh, doubtless with the idea
of harmony, set the organ once more to playing, "My spelling 'tis of
thee," while the rattling West continued to create a new language behind
us.

At length Cottsill sighed. "Very well," he said, "for the sake of
anywheres, I'll vote for surrup."

"That's wise, that's kind, that's good," said Kibosh; and he beat one
hand gently on the table.

At this hopeful point, Jesse Willows noticed, for the first time, that
no lady was now present, and his long body made a singular twisting and
free motion beneath his clothes.

"I will vote for rud and anywheres," Totts said. "But I doubt if I can
accept coat-house."

Jesse Willows took him instantly by the nose. "You'll accept nothin',"
said he, with great sweetness; and he shook him forward and back. "I am
weary of you and yore antics," and he shook him right and left. "You're
goin' to rub out everything you have written," and he shook him round
and round.

"Help," gurgled the struggling Totts. "Help!"

"No, indeed; no, indeed," cried Maverick and Cottsill, delighted.

"You gentlemen are included," said Willows to them, and they both
hastily covered their noses with their hands. "I don't mean that way,"
he continued. "But you're goin' to rub yore lists out, too. Why, you're
the contemptiblest of all the great American frauds. Just because you
have written a picayune book on some picayune specialty, you pass for
bein' educated in our half-civilized country. Put you among genuine
scholars and you would look like old gum shoes. I know my accent is
provincial," he paused and looked at Totts for a moment, "but it's a
heap prettier'n yore's," he shook Totts round and round again, "and you
and I are just goin' to let the English language take care of herself.
She has done it for a thousand years, and she'll do it for a thousand
more, changin' what she pleases an' keepin' what she pleases."

So saying, the young man, even as one drags a resisting dog by a chain,
dragged the howling Totts by his nose to the blackboard, and forced the
rubber into