How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee Part 3

At this remark Miss Appleby broke into much gayety.

"Got many words this mawnin', Professuh?" asked Willows of me; and I retorted, with what should have been telling reproof, that I was not of those who can improvise thorough work.

It was extraordinary how much this young man's remarks pleased Miss Appleby. He was but a poor companion for the lovely girl; and when, after lunch, he retired to slumber in his cabin (as he called it), I took my seat beside her on the rear platform. She was most amiable, but bade me first take down the shawl behind us. The cold blasts, she said, had ceased. We talked for some time, and it was easy to see that under proper guidance her mind would open to all befitting things. Not until Professor Willows came out of his cabin and joined us, did I feel her grow distant again. Without preliminary, he asked: "What does a man who sits down on a sharp needle most resemble?" And, without waiting, he answered, "A profane upstart."

Into such levity I could not possibly enter; I resolved to wait the morrow, and the succeeding days of our convention at Chickle University, for opportunities to exert upon this impressionable young girl my wholesome influence.

We reached our destination during the forenoon of the next day, and I was amazed when I beheld spreading out before me the vast inst.i.tution 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 s.e.xes. 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 antic.i.p.ates, 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 a.s.sembled 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, firmly punished, in the young; for by reason of their immaturity they have but little judgment when to practise it; but to the old it is frequently of the greatest service.

Intending, therefore, to be as agreeable as possible, I approached Professor Lysander Totts with a feigned knowledge of his work. Shaking him cordially by the hand, I said, "Ah, yes; Pecan Nuts!"

"What?" he replied, staring.

"Why, Pecan Nuts!" I repeated. "Let me congratulate----"

"My name is Totts," he interrupted.

"To be sure!" I exclaimed. "Who has not read The Fuel of the Future?"

"I haven't," said Totts.

I corrected myself hastily. "What an absurd slip of the tongue!" I gayly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I meant Mustard Plasters in Pharaoh's Time."

"I haven't read that, either," said Totts.

I should now have been at some loss, but a plaintive voice behind me said, "Hup, hup, hup, hup."

I turned, and saw a smiling little old man, with delicate silver locks that hung well-nigh to his collar.

"Hup, hup," said he again, very amiably.

I turned back to Totts in bewilderment.

"He stutters," Totts explained.

The voice behind me now said with a sudden sort of explosion, "I wrote it."

I turned again, and, catching both his hands as a drowning man is said to catch a straw, I wrung them earnestly and long. "A great work!" I called out to him, as if he were deaf. "A very great work!" And not well knowing what I did, I further shouted to Miss Appleby, who was pa.s.sing us: "He wrote it! Pecan Nuts!"

"Hup, hup," said the little man. "Mustard Plasters."

Little as I owe Miss Appleby, I must always hold her memory in grat.i.tude for her coming forward at this extreme moment.

"Of course it is Mustard Plasters!" she said, with delightful sweetness; "and you must write your name in my copy, dear Professor Egghorn."

He extended an eager hand for the volume.

"It is in my trunk," she continued promptly; "and your signature will make a unique gem of what is already a precious treasure. And you, dear Professor Totts, when I am unpacked, you will surely not refuse me the same honor? Professor Totts, you know," she added to me, "has proved that Cleopatra was a man."

"Then who wrote Pecan Nuts?" I whispered to her hastily.

"He hasn't come yet," she hastily whispered back.

"I am sure," said Kibosh, leading a tall new arrival among us, "that Professor Camillo Cottsill needs no introduction here. We all welcome the man who has said the last word on--the last word on--on--well, now, really, it escapes me, Professor," he finished, turning his wide, gentle smile upon the newcomer, who glared at him angrily, and announced with unnecessary loudness:--

"Nostalgia in the Lobster."

"Thank you, Professor," said Kibosh; "thank you kindly. I think lunch is now awaiting us in the House of Bread."

After brief preparation in the rooms a.s.signed to us, we lunched with the students; and, as I pa.s.sed down the hall, I saw Totts and Egghorn signing their respective volumes for Miss Appleby.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Professors Totts and Egghorn signing their respective works.]

"So quickly unpacked?" I asked her.

"Dear, no!" she returned. "Professor Willows easily bought them for me at the University Book Shop."

"I have but one complaint against your exquisite deceit," I said to her.

"Why did you leave me out?"

"Ah!" she said, "who could deceive you?"

I strove, but unsuccessfully, to occupy a seat beside her at table; it was Jesse Willows who got it, the other being taken by Egghorn, while Totts placed himself opposite. Napoleon preferred men with great noses, but that of Totts would have pleased him too well, I think; and Totts blew it continually. It was my hope that supper, or dinner, or whatever they called the next meal, would not be served with the distressing rapidity of this one; one had barely the time to swallow, and the food went whole down one's throat; but the next meal, and all meals, were the same, and, had our convention lasted longer than it did, I should have fallen victim to a grave dyspepsia. This, I learned, was another instance of the vast genius of Masticator B. Fellows: while educating his students, he created in them the need for the product of his own monopoly. He gave them no time to chew at their meals, and chickle was served free in all the houses. For chewing, at some time or other, is necessary to digestion, and among the thousands at Chickle University I saw not one anywhere, boy or girl, whose mouth was not going like a slow rabbit's; and to judge from the universal oscillatory motion of the jaws of the American people in trains and all public places, I see they are learning that great economic principle of Masticator's, which is announced everywhere in the street cars:--

TIME IS MONEY

He who chickles Saves his nickles--

nickles being the simple spelling of nickels.

This great man allowed us at length to see him next morning, when we a.s.sembled to begin our work. We sat round an imposing table some twenty strong--for all the profound scholars were now arrived--and in front of each scholar, on the ample green baize table-cover, was a great dictionary, with a great gla.s.s inkstand and writing materials. Tall blackboards stood behind us, waiting to receive the words we should reform; but the best of it was to find myself sitting next Miss Appleby, with Willows quite an agreeable distance away. Kibosh had arranged all our seats, and it is the best thing I know of him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Masticator B. Fellows.]

When Masticator B. Fellows entered to open our convention, it was plain at once whence Kibosh had acquired his manner and his appearance--so far as he could acquire this latter: the secretary might have been an early, bad photograph of the magnate. To see Masticator, he was the creature of brotherly love, the preacher of benign gospels, the teacher of female academies; no smell of Senate or Syndicate hung about him. Bald, with a silken skull-cap, bland, with his ten pointed fingers meeting as if to bless, with a sunrise smile, and a black coat as long and unlovely as conscious virtue, he stood before us in benevolent silence, and we rose as one scholar. But at once he motioned us to sit down.