"I don't know if you realise," said Ernest, "that since Army
signalling became fashionable a new danger confronts us."
"If you mean that an enthusiast might start semaphoring unexpectedly
in a confined space and get his neighbour in the eye, I may say that
I have thought of it," I answered. "But it isn't worth worrying very
much about. He wouldn't do it more than once."
"It isn't that," said Ernest. "It's something much more subtle and
insidious. It is the growing tendency in ordinary conversation to use
'Ack' for A, 'Beer' for B, 'Emma' for M, 'Esses' for S, 'Toe' for T,
etc. When you told me you were going to see your Aunt at 3 P.M., for
instance, you said '3 Pip Emma.' And it isn't as if you were at all
good at Semaphore or Morse either.
"Imagine," he continued, "the effect upon a congregation of the
announcement from the pulpit that the Reverend John Smith, Beer
Ack, will preach next Sunday. Or upon a meeting when told that Mr.
Carrington Ponk, J. Pip, will now speak. Think of Aunt Jane and all
her Societies," he went on gloomily. "Imagine her saying that she's
going to an Esses Pip G. meeting to-morrow. It's a dreadful thought.
It will extend to people's initials, too. The great T.P. will be Toe
Pip O'CONNOR. Something will have to be done about it."
"There's only one thing to be done," I said. "You must get into
Parliament and bring in a Bill about it. All might yet be well if you
were an Emma Pip."
* * * * *