“Eight years? George, you’re an optimist. I’ve worked two solid hours on this one ‘simple little sentence,’ as you call it, and I’ve never got it right once. Sometimes I’ve come within one letter of it. Once I made a mighty effort and got all the letters right, but I forgot to space and ran the words together. And say--that simple little sentence hasn’t got near all the letters in it. B, j, k, q, v, x and z are left out.” “Here, then--here’s one that contains every letter: ‘A quick move by the enemy will jeopardize six fine gunboats.’” Jeff pulled pad and pencil to him. “Give me that again and I’ll take it down.” Repeating the alphabet slowly, he canceled each letter as he went. “Right you are! Say, the fellow that got that up was on the job, wasn’t he? Why didn’t you give me this one in the first place? Wonder if it’s possible to get ’em all in another sentence as short?” “I think not,” said Aughinbaugh. “It’s been tried. But I don’t share your admiration for the last one. Besides reeking of militarism abhorrent to my peaceful disposition, it is stiff, labored, artificial and insincere. Compare it with the spontaneity, the beauty, the stately cadences, the sonorous fire, the sweep and swing of the simple, natural appeal: ‘_Now_ is the time for all good men and true to come to the aid of the party!’” If it has ever been your privilege to observe a wise old she-bear watching her cubs at play and to note the expression of her face--half patience, tolerance, resignation; the remainder pride and approval--you will know exactly how Jeff looked. As for Aughinbaugh, he bore himself grandly, chin up. His voice was vibrant, resonant, purposeful; his eyes glowed with serious and lofty enthusiasm: no muscle quivered to a smile. “Why, there is philosophy in it! The one unvarying factor of the human mind,” he went on, “is the firm, unbiased conviction that I am right, and all opposition necessarily, consciously and wilfully wrong. This belief is the base and foundation of all human institutions, of sectionalism, caste, creeds, parties, states, of patriotism itself. It is the premise on which all wars are based. Mark, now, how human nature speaks from its elemental depths in the calm, complacent, but entirely sincere assumption that all good men and true will be unconditionally with the party!” He warmed to his subject; he strode back and forth; he smote open palm with clenched fist in vehement gesture. Jeff snickered. George rebuked him with a stern and withering glance. “I grant you that b, j, k, q, v, x and z are omitted. But what are b, j, k, q, v, x and z in comparison to the chaste perfection of this immortal line? Let them fitly typify the bad men and false who do not come to the aid of the party. Injustice is only what they deserve!”