Show to 71 davi interrupted tale of a man who wrote a bet best seller S SMALL MALL wonder aliat the tower of babel was halted by the confusion of tongues not Nothing hing ii that happened in Ba babylon lylon wasi half so bad as the prevalence of windbags wind bags all anxious to talk a 4 the same time it takes a bit ofa listening to subtract a whole story even when the conversation Is in Engli english for instance I 1 A fortnight ago 1 stepped pe into 11 cellas restaurant on E kast ast forty dittli street to bid in a tenderloin bafo before 0 gene tunney turned up with ills his bune bunch 1 of gastronomic gangsters and corne rei the market markel too late lie ile beat me t toi I 1 the punch so I 1 countered on an en eng fish chop new peas liens and the fixing muscling in among others who were likewise occupied jo davidson Dav ldson modeling an idaho baked potato into a miniature taj mahal wt ait opposite in me edwin lefevre down tile line with a salad dressing dressi ing tainted with jus jual one too many cloven of garlic chr carla morley had liia ills eye on a it tat tea veal kid I 1 ney sizzling to be caressed paul pick 1 C t hardt bardt a hollander who knows h hla spring onions was flirting with a plat pla ter of them everybody talked one of mr tunnels Tun guests sprung aj a new theory for telling the differ difference enco fl between a genuine and a fake pearla pearly ile he wound up babbling about th the p par ar of alexander allton and ad th thel J height of a plug hat as compared with a derby carl reed an engineer choc who i Is a nut on molecules became one lai fri the general confusion of opinions I 1 heard beard what he had bad to say but understand him i rivaled bible sales at the nt next table war correspond ent larry rue so close to me that cou could id hear every word he uttered was filling the ear car of an unsuccessful an t thor with some amazing statistics statistic biow how would you like to have written a book that went into ten million copies said larry leaning across his broiled chicken youre not referring to the BIN bible 4 I 1 hope replied the author rather sadly not at all just a simple little volume selling at halt half a dollar and still in the money rolling off the press presa year after year and pulling down the tha scads even to this day nothing moro nor less athani A simple book issued 23 3 bears ears a aso 0 o at last something really coherent and entertaining shifting my seat I 1 called for black coffee and joined thet the book chat boys this ten mil lion edition stuff larry I 1 asked fact one of those thi things rigs absolutely true that happen without drums druma trumpets or ballyhoo it will open your eye about bi big editions best selle sell ers and popular authorship heres the ii i dope with a fine tableau tor for the cur tain years ago out west to be exact lived a thoroughbred yankee school teacher who dedicated his life to mat educational jasper hunts speller ills name was jasper newton hunt six feet four inches high stately la in manner the posses possessor gor of a flowing white beard and well beyond the three score years and ten record lie became known as the immortal J N at eighty two he died leaving behind several public school textbooks among them hunts progressive speller ten million copies of which have been sold to school children since 1908 the yeni year it was written so much by way of 4 introduction now for the sentimental touch that takes us to li holland olland mich tile the home of paul de kaulf author ot of the medicine men microbe hunters etc and collaborator with sinclair lewis in arrowsmith do you know frazier hunt the war correspondent bet better ter known as spike by those who love him film sure where does docs he horn hora in on this best seller tale well he just happens to be the 1 ini mortal J Ns son and incidentally an old chum of paul de kruif whom ha be was visiting at holland where the palf of them did considerable fhlug around tile the countryside in the course ot of these rambles during a rainstorm they took refuge in an abandoned schoolhouse one of the old red universities so to speak find early copy being nosey by nature and a bears bear i s cat for microbes mic robes de kruit poked about the premises coming eventually upon a pile of old school books in a dis mantled closet among the treasure trove rove was a copy of hunts five speller I 1 describe to you the scene that followed when do da kaulf placed the precious volume I 1 in spikes hand nor do I 1 intend boring you with further petty details except to say that paul and frazier returned to the de kaulf homestead where aft er cr toasting the great names identified with the bright lexicon of youth in many lands they built a small mausoleum of cement under a spreading tree hard by the garden and with due dua ceremony deposited hunts progressive speller in permanent repose on a single sheet of white paper such as 83 professional scribes use in the a tion of mss ass spike before the crypt was scaled wrote this line one ot of a ten million and placed it with best seller service |