I called the boy to the office that morning—or was it the next day? No matter. I called him in and told him, as kindly as possible, that I thought there were other vocations to which he might be better suited. The irony of it! Kilmer Jones—Kyle I!
And he stood there, I remember, with those seventeen-year-old hands that were all knuckles and bone and chapped skin, twisting those hands and shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
"Please, Mr. Booth," he said, his voice cracking. "I ain't got no other job in mind. I wanna be a noospaper man. I ain't got no—"
If not for that "ain't got no," I think I might have relented. But no one is going to ruin the English language as he did! Not in my offices!
I took him to task severely for his offensive usage, outlined a correct example of what he had attempted to say, gave him a brief lesson in the history of the tongue, and explained why it had been chosen as the official Terran speech. I think my conclusion was, "You'll be much better off in a position which requires you to quote neither Milton nor Shakespeare nor any author save possibly those who write the comic strips."
"Got no training," he said softly. (I supposed it was to keep his voice from exhibiting its usual adolescent gymnastics.)
I shuddered slightly, I remember. "You mean, 'I have no training.'"
"Yeah ..." softly again. "Yeah, Mr. Booth."
"Yes!" I cried impatiently. "Not 'yeah,' but yes!"
I searched for his severance pay on my desk, wondering who the devil had hired him in the first place. Gave him three weeks pay, as I recall it, one more than necessary.