How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee Part 5

"But I shall not permit any such liberty to be taken with my own name,"

said Professor Maverick, firmly; and this was conceded to him, Professor Totts objecting.

"We shall never reach consistency at this rate," grumbled Lysander Totts.

"Who came here to be consistent?" retorted Maverick.

"We came here for spelling reform," added Camillo Cottsill.

("Good gracious," said Miss Appleby, under her breath.)

Presently it was the letter h that occupied us; and old honour now became onor (some were for oner, but gave in), followed by erb, our, and umor.

"What's that?" demanded Totts, pointing to our.

"Time of day," answered Maverick. "Sixty minutes make one our."

"Then n.o.body can tell it from our cat, our cow," said Professor Totts.

"We can't help that," said Maverick.

"We're only here for simplification," Cottsill said again.

("Good gracious," repeated Miss Appleby.)

"Make it ower," suggested Cottsill; and this was done.

"Make it minits, too," said Totts; and this was done.

"Make it sekonds," said Maverick; and this was done.

Cottsill turned to Egghorn at the blackboard. "Add eir, umble, otel, and istorical," said he.

"No, he sha'n't!" cried Totts, fiercely.

"Are we phonetic or not?" demanded Cottsill, turning on him.

("You're a pack of geese," said Miss Appleby.)

"I never said umble in my life!" shouted Totts.

"I reckon he don't use the aixpression," said Willows.

"And if istorical is adopted, I'll resign now," Totts continued.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," protested Kibosh.

"I move those last h's be laid on the table," said Maverick; and this was done.

"Past participles," Egghorn now wrote on the blackboard. "Termination _ed_ to be changed to _t_; for instance, blest, exprest, dro----"

"What are you going to do with rest?" interrupted Totts.

"And test?" said some one down the table.

"And nest?" another called out.

"Can't you let him finish?" said Cottsill. And Egghorn continued, "Dropt, stopt, spilt, kilt, and so forth."

("Kilt!" whispered Miss Appleby. "Oh, dear!")

"Rattlet instead of rattled will look funny," observed some one.

"So will mart and wart," remarked Willows, "instead of marred and warred."

"If you have rattlet and mart and wart," yelled Totts, "I'll resign right now, right now, right now!"

"Who thought of having them, having them, having them?" thundered Cottsill.

"Gentlemen! Oh, Gentlemen!" wailed Kibosh.

"But consistency----" objected Maverick.

"You cut out consistency yourself," Cottsill reminded him. We despatched the past participles, and came also without much disturbance through catalog, demagog, and so forth (vogue and rogue made some trouble, and our fundamental principle of inconsistency had once more to be a.s.serted), but when their blood was roused and the fire of simplification grew hot in them, and they adopted the following with cheers and noises of feet----

Receev, deceev, conceev, beleev, weev, leev, greev, seez, pleez, t.e.e.z--

I felt that we had really got near the weeding-out point, especially when Jesse Willows rose and added fleez. "Plural of dogbiters," he explained, and sat down quietly. At this Miss Appleby gave one brief, happy laugh, but at once resumed a singular tapping of her foot which I had begun to observe. We now thoroughly phoneticked many words: blud, for instance, and wunss (which is so much phoneticker than once!) and the days of the week: Munday, for instance, and Toozday. (I say Tewsday, myself, but I did not mention it to these profound American scholars.)

"My little daughter Zola B.," said Professor Maverick, "can always spell Wednesday."

"My nine children never can," said Totts.

"I withdraw the objection," said Maverick; and so it was Wensday.

Skwirl, for squirrel, was next agreed upon, and lepard, and eegl. And as the blood of the scholars grew ever hotter and hotter, Const.i.tooshun, Deklarayshun, and United Staits were adopted.

"But my Zola B.----" began Maverick.

"What are you-all goin' to call yore next?" asked Willows.

Maverick sighed. "My salary only affords----"

"Beg yore pardon, suh, I forgot," said Willows, with sympathy.

It was here that I rose. "Gentlemen," I said, "let us do it right. Of course, English spelling is but a rag-bag of lawlessness."

"He has said that before," muttered Jesse Willows.

"But," I continued, "the sun never sets on English spelling."