CHAPTER XXV

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.