We
      really do not believe the vagabond can write a word that hasn’t
      an O in it. Wonder if this O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he
      came away from Down-East in a great hurry. Wonder if he O’s as
      much there as he does here? “O! it is pitiful.”’

      The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous
      insinuations, I shall not attempt to describe. On the
      eel-skinning principle, however, he did not seem to be so much
      incensed at the attack upon his integrity as one might have
      imagined. It was the sneer at his style that drove him to
      desperation. What!—he Touch-and-go Bullet-head!—not able to write
      a word without an O in it! He would soon let the jackanapes see
      that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let him see how much he was
      mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go Bullet-head, of
      Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that he,
      Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole
      paragraph—aye! a whole article—in which that contemptible vowel
      should not once—not even once—make its appearance. But no;—that
      would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He,
      Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the
      caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. Perish so vile a
      thought! The O forever; He would persist in the O. He would be as
      O-wy as O-wy could be. Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great
      Touch-and-go, in the next ‘Tea-Pot,’ came out merely with this
      simple but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy
      affair:

      ‘The editor of the “Tea-Pot” has the honor of advising the editor
      of the “Gazette” that he (the “Tea-Pot”) will take an opportunity
      in tomorrow morning’s paper, of convincing him (the “Gazette”)
      that he (the “Tea-Pot”) both can and will be _his own master_, as
      regards style;—he (the “Tea-Pot”) intending to show him (the
      “Gazette”) the supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with
      which the criticism of him (the “Gazette”) inspires the
      independent bosom of him (the “Tea-Pot”) by composing for the
      especial gratification (?) of him (the “Gazette”) a leading
      article, of some extent, in which the beautiful vowel—the emblem
      of Eternity—yet so offensive to the hyper-exquisite delicacy of
      him (the “Gazette”) shall most certainly not be avoided by his
      (the “Gazette’s”) most obedient, humble servant, the “Tea-Pot.”
      “So much for Buckingham!”’

      In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather
      than decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf
      ear to all entreaties for ‘copy,’ and simply requesting his
      foreman to ‘go to the d——l,’ when he (the foreman) assured him
      (the ‘Tea-Pot’!) that it was high time to ‘go to press’: turning
      a deaf ear to everything, I say, the great Bullet-head sat up
      until day-break, consuming the midnight oil, and absorbed in the
      composition of the really unparalleled paragraph, which follows:—

      ‘So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don’t crow, another
      time, before you’re out of the woods! Does your mother know
      you’re out? Oh, no, no!—so go home at once, now, John, to your
      odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl—go! You won’t! Oh, poh, poh, John don’t do so! You’ve _got_ to go,
      you know! So go at once, and don’t go slow, for nobody owns you
      here, you know! Oh! John, John, if you don’t go you’re no
      homo—no! You’re only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a
      poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or
      frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, now—cool! Do be cool, you
      fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don’t frown so—don’t! Don’t
      hollo, nor howl nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how
      you do look! Told you so, you know—but stop rolling your goose of
      an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!’

      Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great
      Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly,
      composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS.
      to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home,
      retired, with ineffable dignity to bed. Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs
      to his ‘case,’ in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a
      commencement at ‘setting’ the MS. ‘up.’

      In the first place, of course,—as the opening word was ‘So,’—he
      made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph
      with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw
      himself upon the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity—but
      who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without
      the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his
      astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles,
      that he had been only thumping them to no purpose, against the
      bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o
      hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he
      found _that_, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar
      predicament. Awe-stricken, his first impulse was to rush to the
      foreman. ‘Sir!’ said he, gasping for breath, ‘I can’t never set up nothing
      without no o’s.’

      ‘What do you mean by that?’ growled the foreman, who was in a
      very ill humor at being kept so late. ‘Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a
      little un!’

      ‘What—what the d—l has become of all that were in the case?’

      ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said the boy, ‘but one of them ere “G’zette”
      devils is bin prowling ’bout here all night, and I spect he’s
      gone and cabbaged ‘em every one.’

      ‘Dod rot him! I haven’t a doubt of it,’ replied the foreman,
      getting purple with rage ‘but I tell you what you do, Bob, that’s
      a good boy—you go over the first chance you get and hook every
      one of their i’s and (d——n them!) their izzards.’

      ‘Jist so,’ replied Bob, with a wink and a frown—‘I’ll be into
      ‘em, I’ll let ‘em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that
      ere paragrab? Mus go in to-night, you know—else there’ll be the
      d—l to pay, and—’

      ‘And not a bit of pitch hot,’ interrupted the foreman, with a
      deep sigh, and an emphasis on the ‘bit.’ ‘Is it a long paragraph,
      Bob?’

      ‘Shouldn’t call it a _wery_ long paragrab,’ said Bob. ‘Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it!