But his duty was plain, and he took his varnish pot and pasted the list
on the wall beside his desk where he could refer to it instantly, and
then he slid on to his high stool to write the acknowledgment of the
receipt of the list.

"Interurban Express Co., Franklin. Gentelmen," he wrote, "I receved the
genral order 719 and will oba it but I will have to practise v. and n.
awhile first, some of the words dont come natural to me off hand like
polyp and estivate. what is the rate on these if any comes exprest.
whats a etiology, pleas advice me am I to use all these words or only
sum. Mike Flannery."

He sealed this with the feeling that he had done well indeed for a first
time. He had worked in "practise v. and n." and "exprest," and, if the
head office should complain that he had not used enough of the words in
the list, he could point to "polyp" and "estivate" and "etiology." It
was slow work, for he had to look up each word he used before writing
it, to see whether it was on the list or not, but generally it was not,
and that gave him full liberty to spell it in any of the three or four
simplified ways he was used to employing.

Then he turned to his letter to Mary O'Donnell. His buoyancy was
somewhat lessened in this second attempt by the necessity of looking up
each word as he used it, and he was working his way slowly, and had just
told her he was sorry he had "kist" her ("kist" was in the three
hundred), and that it had been because he had "fagot" himself ("fagot"
was in the list also), when a man entered the office and laid a package
on the counter.

Flannery slid from his stool and went to the counter. The man was Mr.