I sought (without great eagerness) the companionship of Kibosh. "Do you not fear," I asked him, "that we may not find ourselves able to reach an agreement as to the system by which this respelling should proceed?"
"What would hinder it?" he inquired.
"Of course, our present spelling is but a rag-bag of lawlessness," I replied, for I was growing fond of my description of it. "But great authors and newspapers have spread it round the globe. The sun never sets on English spelling. We must join the great English universities with us. We must join Canada, India, Australia. We must do it right."
"England will have to follow us!" he declared.
"If you'll watch England," I said, "I think you'll find she has her own ideas about that."
"Then our publishers and writers will ignore England," he replied.
"If you'll watch our publishers and writers," I again said, "you'll see they'll be slow to let go their English market by making books that would be illegible throughout the British Empire."
"What are authors, anyhow?" he demanded. "It is our business men who are our glory."
"If you'll watch our business men," I repeated, not without acerbity, "you'll find they have London correspondents, and they'll not care to run two sorts of spelling with their stenographers."