wo spent
in writing from dictation, another hour or two in reading aloud, a
little geography and a little history and a little physics made the day
pass busily. A pupil is a great resource. Karstens was continually
designing and redesigning a motor-boat in which one engine should
satisfactorily operate twin screws; Tatum learned the thirty-nine
articles by heart; but naval architecture and even controversial
divinity palled after a while. The equipment and the supplies for the
higher region were gone over again and again, to see that all was
properly packed and in due proportion.

[Sidenote: The Language of Commerce]

[Sidenote: "Talcum and Glucose"]

As one handled the packages and read and reread the labels, one was
struck by the meagre English of merchandisers and the poor verbal
resources of commerce generally. A while ago business dealt hardly with
the word "proposition." It was the universal noun. Everything that
business touched, however remotely, was a "proposition." When last he
was "outside" the writer heard the Nicene creed described as a "tough
proposition"; the Vice-President of the United States as a "cold-blooded
proposition," and missionaries in Alaska generally as "queer
propositions." Now commerce has discovered and appropriated the word
"product" and is working it for all it is worth. The coffee in the can
calls itself a product. The compressed medicines from London direct you
to "dissolve one product" in so much water; the vacuum bottles inform
you that since they are a "glass product" they will not guarantee
themselves against breakage; the tea tablets and the condensed pea soup
affirm the purity of "these products"; the powdered milk is a little
more explicit and calls itself a "food product." One feels disposed to
agree with Humpty Dumpty, in "Through the Looking-Glass," that when a
word is worked as hard as this it ought to be paid extra. One feels that
"product" ought to be coming round on Saturday night to collect its
overtime. The zwieback amuses one; it is a West-coast "product," and
apparently "product" has not yet reached the West coast--it does not so
dignify itself. But it urges one, in great letters on every package, to
"save the end seals; they are valuable!" Walter finds that by gathering
one thousand two hundred of these seals he would be entitled to a
"rolled-gold" watch absolutely free! This zwieback was the whole stock
of a Yukon grocer purchased when the supply we ordered did n