A Wise man Learn English through story Level 3
as it is well known that the wise men in
the bible came from the east and as mr
touch and go bullet head
came from the east
mr bullet head was therefore a wise man
and if further proof of the matter is
needed
here we have it
mr b
was an editor
a bad temper was his only weakness
he did not consider his inability ever
to change his mind a weakness it was he
firmly believed his strong point
i have shown that touch and go bullet
head was a wise man
and the only occasion on which he was
not wise was when
leaving the proper home for all wise men
the east he moved to the city of
alexander the great onopolis or some
place of similar name
out west
but i must be fair
and say that when he made up his mind
finally to settle in that town he
thought that no newspaper and therefore
no editor existed in that particular
part of the country
when he started the newspaper which he
called
the teapot he expected to have no
competition
i feel sure that he would never have
thought of going to live in alexander
the great annopolis if he had known
that in alexander the great anopolis
there lived a gentleman named
john smith
if i rightly remember
who for many years had quietly grown fat
editing the alexander the great
annopolis daily news
it was only therefore because he was not
told about john smith that mr bullethead
found himself in alex
suppose we call it nopolis for short but
as he did
find himself there and rather than admit
to a mistake
he decided to remain
so he did remain and he did more
he got out his printing press rented an
office exactly opposite that of the
daily news
and the third morning after his arrival
saw the appearance of the first number
of the nopolis teapot
as nearly as i can remember
this was the name of the new paper
the leading article i must admit
was excellent and very severe
it was especially bitter about things in
general
and as for the editor of the daily news
he was cruelly criticized
some of bullet head’s remarks were
really so strong that i am astonished
that john smith managed to live through
the experience
i cannot hope to give all the teapots
words exactly but one paragraph
goes like this
oh yes
oh we can see
oh no doubt the editor opposite is such
a clever man
oh dear oh
goodness what is the world coming to
an article as bitter and well-formed as
this
exploded like a bomb among the peaceful
citizens of nopolis
groups of excited people met to discuss
it on street corners
everyone waited nervously for john
smith’s reply
next morning
it appeared in the daily news as follows
in the teapot of yesterday
we find the words
oh yes
oh we can see
oh no doubt
oh dear oh goodness
why the man is all oh
that explains why he reasons in a circle
and why there is neither beginning nor
end to him nor to anything he says
we really do not believe the man can
write a word that hasn’t an o in it
we wonder if this owing
is a habit of his
he came from the east in a great hurry
we wonder if he owes as much there as he
does here
oh
it is pitiful
i shall not attempt to describe the
anger of mr bullethead at these shocking
suggestions
he did not seem to be as angry at the
attack on his honesty as one would have
imagined
it was the attack on his style that
upset him
what
he
touch and go bullet head
not able to write a word without an o in
it
he would soon show smith that he was
mistaken
yes he would let mr john smith see that
he
bullet head could write a whole
paragraph even a whole article in which
that unfortunate vowel did not once
appear
but no
that
would be doing just what john smith
wanted
he
bullet head would make no change in his
style for the satisfaction of mr smith
in the world
the o
forever
he would keep the o
he would use oh whenever he liked
burning with this determination the
great touch and go in the next teapot
came out with this
simple paragraph
the editor of the teapot has the honor
of advising the editor of the daily news
that he
the teapot will take an opportunity in
tomorrow morning’s paper of proving to
him the daily news that he the teapot
both can and will be his own master in
his written style
he the teapot
will write for the particular
satisfaction of him
the daily news a leading article of some
length in which the beautiful letter o
shall most certainly not be avoided by
his the daily news’s most obedient
servant
the teapot
to carry out this
terrible threat which he had made
the great bullet head sat up all night
burning the midnight lamp oil and busy
with the really unequaled paragraph
which follows
so
ho john
told you so you know
don’t shout 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
old woods
go home to your woods
go
you won’t
oh pooh pooh
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
you’re only a cow a poor good for
nothing to nobody dog
don’t complain so you fool oh john how
you do look
told you so you know go and drown your
sorrows in a bowl
tired out of course by so wonderful a
piece of work the great touch and go
could do nothing more that night
he handed his article to the printer’s
boy who was waiting and walked slowly
home to bed
the printer’s boy to whom the article
was trusted
ran upstairs in a great hurry and
prepared to set the article in print
first of course as the opening word was
so
he looked for and found a capital s
pleased with this success he immediately
threw himself on the box where the
little ohms were kept
but
who can describe his feelings of horror
when his fingers came out of it
without a letter in them
who can tell of his astonishment and
anger when he realized that the little
box was
completely empty
not a single little o was in the little
o box
and
looking fearfully at the capital o box
he found that in exactly the same state
empty
he ran to his master
sir
said he breathlessly
i can set up nothing without no o’s
what do you mean by that said the chief
who was very angry at being kept from
his bed so late
well sir there isn’t an o in the office
neither a big one nor a little one
what has happened to all those that were
in the box
i don’t know sir said the boy but one of
those daily news people has been
wandering about here and i expect he’s
taken everyone
i haven’t a doubt of it replied the
chief angrily turning purple in the face
with anger
but i tell you what to do bob
that’s a good boy
you go over to the daily news the first
chance you get and take every one of
their eyes
right replied bob
i’ll go
i’ll show them a thing or two
but what about that paragraph it must go
in tonight you know if not there’ll be
trouble
trouble enough
is it a long paragraph bob
i shouldn’t call it a very long
paragraph
ah
well then do the best you can with it we
must get it ready said the chief who was
buried in work
just put in some other letter for o
nobody’s going to read the man’s
nonsense in any case
very well replied bob
here i go
and off he hurried
so
i have to put out their eyes do i
the fact is that although bob was only
12 years old and four feet high
he was always ready for a
fight the difficulty described here
happens quite frequently in printing
offices and i cannot explain it but the
fact is certain that when the difficulty
does come up it almost always happens
that the letter
x
is used instead of the letter which is
missing
the true reason perhaps is that x is the
most plentiful letter in the boxes
or it was so in old times for long
enough to make the use of it a habit
with printers
bob would have thought it quite wrong to
use any other letter than x
i shall have to x this paragraph
he said to himself as he read it over in
astonishment
but it’s just about the worst paragraph
of os that i’ve ever seen
so he did
x the paragraph
and that is how it was printed
next morning the population of nopolis
were all astonished to read in the
teapot the following
leading article
the confusion caused by this strange
article
cannot be imagined
the first idea in the minds of the
population was that some
devilish trick was hidden by the signs
and there was a general rush to bullet
head’s house for the purpose of
punishing him as he deserved
but that gentleman was nowhere to be
found
he had disappeared
no one could tell how
and not even his shadow
has ever been seen since
unable to find him people’s anger died
down at last
but there remained quite a variety of
opinions about this unhappy affair
one gentleman
thought the whole thing an
excellent joke
another could only suppose that bullet
head had decided to
express his anger in the most
imaginative way that he could
and to set an example to our children
suggested another
it was clear to all
that bullet head had been driven to
extreme action
and in fact since that editor could not
be found there was some talk of
punishing the other one
the more common feeling though was that
the affair was simply impossible to
explain
nobody could understand what had
happened
the opinion of bob the printer’s boy
who said nothing about his having x the
paragraph
did not receive as much attention as i
think it deserved
he said
that he had no doubt about the matter at
all that it was a clear case that mr
bullet head
never could be persuaded to drink like
other people but drank beer all the time
which filled him with wind and made him
x
across
in the x
dream
you