ee."

"What did you learn at the school?" the boss asked the fair young
applicant for the stenographer's job.

"I learned," she replied, "that spelling is essential to a
stenographer."

The boss chuckled,

"Good. Now let me hear you spell 'essential.'"

The fair girl hesitated for the fraction of a second.

"There are three ways," she replied. "Which do you prefer?"

And she got the job.

JONES--"'Ow is your 'ealth today, Mr. 'Arrison?"

HARRISON--"My name is not 'Arrison."

JONES--"Well, if a haitch, a hay, two hars, a hi, a hes, a ho and a
hen don't spell 'Arrison, then what does it spell?"

A sailor was taken ill with a bad attack of rheumatism while
mine-sweeping on a trawler.

The sick man was promptly ordered to hospital, but later on the doctor
found out, quite by accident, that he was still on board ship.

Angrily he asked why his order had not been obeyed.

"Well," replied the captain, we tried to send him ashore, but a
sergeant of police hailed us and said that on no account was he to be
landed or we'd be fined L100, so we just kept him on board."

"But did you not signal to the depot, as I said."

"Yes, we did; but neither me nor the signalman knew how to spell
rheumatism, so we called it smallpox."

_O-U-G-H_

_A Fresh Hack at an Old Knot_

I'm taught p-l-o-u-g-h
S'all be pronounce "plow."
"Zat's easy w'en you know," I say,
"Mon Anglais, I'll get through!"

My teacher say zat in zat case,
O-u-g-h is "oo"
And zen I laugh and say to him,
"Zees Anglaiz make me cough."

He say "Not coo," but in zat word,
O-u-g-h is 'off'
Oh, Sacre bleu! such varied sounds
Of words makes me hiccough!

He say "Again mon frien' ees wrong;
O-u-g-h is 'up'
In hiccough." Zen I cry, "No more,
You make my t'roat feel rough."

"Non, non!" he cry, "you are hot right;
O-u-g-h is 'uff.'"
I say, "I try to spik your words,
I cannot spik zem though!"

"In time you'll learn, but now you're wrong!
O-u-g-h is 'owe.'"
"I'll try no more, I s'all go mad,
I'll drown me in ze lough!"

"But ere you drown yourself," said he,
"O-u-g-h is 'ock'."
He taught no more, I held him fast,
And killed him wiz a rough.

--_Charles Battell Loomis_.

"Pa, what's phonetic spelling?"

"It's a way of spelling that I often got whipped for when I was your
age."

"I say, Hodge, why do you always put '