"Take this," said Mr. Smalley sharply. "General Order Number (you can supply the number, Miss Merrill). To all employees of the Interurban Express Company: On and after this date all employees of this company will use, in their correspondence and in all other official business, the following list of three hundred words. By order of the president. Read what you have there."
"Her pencil was delicately poised
above the ruled page"
Miss Merrill ran one hand around her belt—she was the kind of girl that can make her toilet and do business at the same time—and read:
"'General Order Number Seven Hundred and Nineteen. To all employees of the Interurban Express Company: On and after this date all employees of this company will use, in their correspondence and in all other official business, the following list of three hundred words. By order of the president.'"
"Yes," said the president, tearing a strip from Mr. Gratz's newspaper that he held in his hand. "Here is the list of words. I want the whole thing mimeographed, and I want you to see that a copy gets into the hands of every man and woman in our employ: all the offices, here and on the road. Understand?"
"Yes, sir," she answered, and then she arose, fixed her neck scarf, and went out. Mr. Smalley took his seat at his desk and began arranging his papers, humming cheerfully.
Mr. Gratz arose and stalked silently out of the office. But when the door was closed behind him he smiled. One of the members of the "Simplified Spelling Board" was his personal friend. Mr. Gratz had prevailed upon Mr. Smalley to adopt the new spelling, and he had done so by using the only means he could use with hope of success.
The next day Mike Flannery, the Westcote agent of the express company, was sitting at his desk in the express office, carefully spelling out a letter to Mary O'Donnell, on whom his affections were firmly fixed, when he heard the train from Franklin whistle. He had time to read what he had written before he went to meet the train, and he glanced over the letter hastily.