THE MISSING WORD
Just at this time the inhabitants of England—one
might say of the British Isles—but more
especially those privileged to dwell in London and
its suburbs, submitted to one of the waves of intellectual
excitement which, as is well known, are wont at intervals
to pass over this fervidly imaginative people.
Some representative person—ingenious, philosophic,
and ardent for the public good—had conceived
in a bright moment a thought destined to stir with
zeal the pensive leisure of millions. This genius
owned, or edited, a weekly paper already dear to the
populace, and one day he announced in its columns
a species of lottery—ignoble word dignified
by the use here made of it. Readers of adequate
culture were invited to exercise their learning and
their wit in the conjectural completion of a sentence—no
quotation, but an original apophthegm—whereof
one word was represented by a blank. Each competitor
sent, together with the fruit of his eager brain, a
small sum of money, and the brilliant enthusiast who
at the earliest moment declared the missing word reaped
as guerdon the total of these numerous remittances.
It was an amusement worthy of our time; it appealed
alike to the villa and the humble lodging, encouraged
the habit of literary and logical discussion, gave
an impulse to the sale of dictionaries. High
and low, far and wide, a spirit of noble emulation
took hold upon the users of the English tongue.
“The missing word”—from every
lip fell the phrase which had at first sounded so
mysteriously; its vogue exceeded that, in an earlier
time, of “the missing link.” The demand
for postage stamps to be used in transmitting the
entrance fee threatened to disorganize that branch
of the public service; sorting clerks and letter carriers,
though themselves contributory, grew dismayed at the
additional labour imposed upon them.
Naturally the infection was caught by most of the
lively little group of Londoners in whose fortunes
we are interested. Mr. Gammon threw himself with
mirthful ardour into a competition which might prove
so lucrative. Mr. Greenacre gave part of his supple
mind to this new branch. of detective energy.
The newly-wedded pair, Mr. and Mrs. Nibby, ceased
from the wrangling that follows upon a honeymoon,
and incited each other to a more profitable contest.
The Parish household devoted every possible moment
with native earnestness to the choice and the weighing
of vocables. Polly Sparkes, unable to get upon
the track of her missing uncle, abandoned her fiery
intelligence to the missing word. The Cheeseman
couple, Mrs. Bubb, nay, even Moggie the general, dared
verbal conjecture and risked postage stamps.
Only in a certain china shop near Battersea Park Road
was the tumult unregarded, for Mrs. Clover had fallen
from her wonted health, her happy temper, and Minnie
in good truth cared neither for the recreation nor
the dangled prize.
