a German: _La guerre est un grand mal_--'War is a great evil.'
He seeks in his index _guerre_, and finds 13. The verb _etre_, 'to be,'
is 33. _Grand_, or 'great,' is 67; and _mal_, or 'evil,' is 68. The
sentence then reads:

13. 33. 67. 68.

The sentence might be understood by these four numbers, but the author
perfects it. _Guerre_, or 'war,' is the nominative case, and is
appropriately designated by the Arabic numeral 1. The third person,
singular, present tense, of the indicative mood of a verb, is
characterized by 15. _Grand_ and _mal_ being each in the nominative
case, also require the figure 1. He will therefore write:

13. 1 | 33. 15 | 67. 1 | 68.1

--the numbers being separated by a vertical dash, to avoid confusion.
The German, inverting the process, turns to _his_dictionary, and finds
_Der Krieg ist ein grosses Uebel_.

If the world were to be persuaded to adopt these dictionaries, and with
them some uniform oral system of counting, such as might be learned in a
day, who shall say in what conversation might result! Fancy an orator
counting '83.1--10.16--225.2'--interrupted by enthusiastic cries of
'2.30' and '11.45!' Fancy a lover breathing his tender passion in
'837.25--29.1,' and extracting a reluctant '12' from his adored. Fancy a
drunken Delaware Democrat--a SAULSBURY--flourishing a revolver, and
gurgling out '54.40' to the Sergeant-at-Arms in particular, and decency
in general, as a proof of his fitness to be regarded as a mate for his
Southern colleagues. Fancy Brignoli singing '1.2.3,' as he reminds us by
his good singing and wooden acting of a nightingale imprisoned in a
pump--

Or fancy the appearance of a page of Shakspeare or Homer thus
metamorphosed.

'He lisped in numbers for, the numbers came.'

It is something to the marquis's credit that he evidently, to judge from
the sixth article of his 'Century,' had discovered the telegraph, an
invention not much used in Europe until the commencement of the French
Revolution. It had indeed been understood in a rude form by the
ancients. 'Polybius describes a method of communication which was
invented by Cleoxenus, which answered both by day and night,' but that
of Worcester's is thought to have been far superior to anything known
before his time. The following paragraphs all indicate inventions
greatly in advance of his age:

'No. IX.--An engine portable in one's pocket, which may be carried
and fastened in the inside of th