Bubbs'.
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.
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