ned, and a pompadour, followed by a demure young
lady, entered the room. She slipped quietly into a chair beside the
president's desk and laid her copy-book on the slide of the desk and
waited while her employer arranged the words in his mind. Her pencil was
delicately poised above the ruled page. While she waited she hit the
front of her pompadour a few improving slaps with her unengaged hand and
pulled out the slack of her waist front.

"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."

[Illustration: "_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 w