meanings are wholly forgotten or obscured, they become part
of the common speech. One kind of Slang may succeed to another, but
cinch is secure for ever of a place in the newspaper, and in the spoken
language, of America. Caboodle, also, is firmly established. The long
series of words, such as Cachunk or Kerblunk, which suggest the impact
of falling bodies with the earth, will live as expletives with Say,
Sure, and many other, interjections which fill up the pauses of thought
and speech. There are two other specimens of Slang beloved by the
journals, for which it would be rash to prophesy a long life. To call
a man or a thing or an act "the limit," is for the moment the highest
step, save one, in praise or blame. When the limit is not eloquent
enough to describe the hero who has climbed the topmost rung of glory,
the language gasps into simplicity, and declares that he is It. "I
didn't do a thing," says an eminent writer, "but push my face in there
about eight o'clock last night, and I was It from the start." Though
the pronoun is expressive enough, it does not carry with it the signs of
immortality, and the next change of fashion may sweep it away into the
limbo of forgotten words.

The journals do their best to keep alive the language of the people. The
novelists do far more, since their works outlive by months or years the
exaggeration of the press. And the novelists, though in narrative they
preserve a scrupulous respect for the literary language, take what
licence the dialect and character of their personages permit them. It
is from novels, indeed, that future generations will best be able to
construct the speech of to-day. With the greatest skill the writers of
romance mimic the style and accent of their contemporaries. They
put into the mouths of those who, in life, knew no other lingo, the
highly-flavoured Slang of the street or the market. Here, for instance,
is the talk of a saloon-keeper, taken from W. Payne's story, 'The Money
Captain,' which echoes, as nearly as printed words can echo, the voice
of the boodler:

"Stop it?" says the saloon-keeper of a journalist's attack. "What I got
to stop it with? What's the matter with you fellows anyhow? You come
chasin' yourselves down here, scared out of your wits because a dinky
little one cent newspaper's makin' faces at you. A man 'd think you was
a young lady's Bible-class and 'd seen a mouse.... Now, that's right,"
he exclaims, as another assailant appears; "mak