Another bar to wordy discussions on paper is the fact that many well-informed people are not sure of their spelling. In this modern age too many business men depend upon their clerks and stenographers to see to such trifles as spelling and grammar; their own knowledge of the mechanics of expression grows dusty. One reason for the decline of the Roman Empire was that the soldiers became too lazy to carry their own weapons. They left them to slaves, and the slaves practiced with the implements of war until they became so expert that they overcame the masters. I think of this sometimes when a man who has nearly lost the art of writing through this transfer of the medium of expression from the hand to the mouth tries to communicate with me. Once I received a scathing reply to an excuse I made to a correspondent—that a sore throat had made it difficult for me to dictate letters. He acidly inquired how long it had been since people wrote letters with the throat. Ignorant men who write little usually make the meaning evident, though the form cannot be called graceful. One night a drunken man drove into my yard by mistake. It was pitch dark, and I happened to be alone on the farm. His horses, eager for harbor, had turned into our road. I went without a lantern (the family had taken it on their trip) to turn his horses about and start them down the highway. Then he became possessed with a strong desire to tell me all his troubles. Of course, as I could not hear them, I made no reply, and my silence so enraged him that he wanted to fight. He clambered down from the wagon and groped about in the darkness to reach me. At last I made him understand that I could not hear, whereupon he was seized with a great grief for my trouble, and insisted on writing out his sentiments for me. There was no denying him, so off at one side of the buildings I started a little blaze of straw, and by its light he scrawled on a piece of writing paper with a blunt pencil. By the same flickering light I deciphered this: “_I am darn sorry. My brother cured his’n with skunk oil._” Then he drove off singing, glad in his heart that he had offered consolation to an afflicted brother. My children have been interpreters for me from the time they were able to write. They can go with me on business trips and get the message which others frequently cannot deliver on paper. At first they found this hard and irksome, but it has proved remarkably good drill for them in English. They have come to be excellent reporters, with the ability to put the pith of long sentences and whole lectures into a few exact words. This exercise of giving the deaf man an accurate and brief account of the great volume of an ordinary conversation has really developed their powers of expression.