roight, though I be sorry I said it; I
joost reckoned it in my head."

"But how didst do that, Jack?" his questioner asked, astonished, while
the boys standing round stared in silent wonder.

"Oh! in my head," Jack said carelessly; "it be easy enough to reckon in
your head if you practise a little."

"And canst do any sum in thy head, Jack, as quick as that?"

"Not any sum, but anything easy, say up to the multiplication or
division by eight figures."

"Let's try him," one boy said.

"All right, try away," Jack said. "Do it first on a bit of paper, and
then ask me."

The boys drew off in a body, and a sum was fixed upon and worked out
with a great deal of discussion.

At last, after a quarter of an hour's work, when all had gone through it
and agreed that it was correct, they returned and said to him, "Multiply
324,683 by 459,852." Jack thought for a few seconds and then taking the
pencil and paper wrote down the answer: 149,306,126,916.

"Why, Jack, thou be'est a conjurer," one exclaimed, while the others
broke out into a shout of astonishment.

From that time it became an acknowledged fact that Jack Simpson was a
wonder, and that there was some use in studying after all; and after
their games were over they would sit round and ask him questions which
they had laboriously prepared, and the speed and accuracy of his answers
were a never-failing source of wonder to them.

As to his other studies they never inquired; it was enough for them that
he could do this, and the fact that he could do it made them proud of
him in a way, and when put upon by the pitmen it became a common retort
among them, "Don't thou talk, there's Jack Simpson, he knows as much as
thee and thy mates put together. Why, he can do a soom as long as a
slaate as quick as thou'd ask it."

Jack himself laughed at his calculating powers, and told the boys that
they could do the same if they would practise, believing what he said;
but in point of fact this was not so, for the lad had an extraordinary
natural faculty for calculation, and his schoolmaster was often
astonished by the rapidity with which he could prepare in his brain long
and complex calculations, and that in a space of time little beyond that
which it would take to write the question upon paper.

So abnormal altogether was his power in this respect that Mr. Merton
begged him to discontinue the practice of difficult calculation when at
work.

"It is a bad thing, Jack, to give