rious import that all his
customer's mathematical proficiency was unable to make out what
it was all about. First he set down a long row of figures, which
he added together with much difficulty, and then seemed to
instantly conceive the most unrelenting hostility to the sum
total. The mathematical tortures to which he put that unhappy
amount; the arithmetical abuse which he heaped upon it, and the
algebraic contumely with which he overwhelmed it, almost defy
description. He first belabored it with the four simple rules; he
stretched it with Addition; he cut it in two with Subtraction; he
made it top-heavy with Multiplication, and tore it to pieces with
Division--then he extracted its square root; then extracted the
cube root of that, which left nothing of the unfortunate sum
total but a small fraction, which he then divided by _ab_, and
made "equal to" an infinitesimal part of some unknown _x_. Having
thus wreaked his vengeance on the unhappy number, he laid away
the surviving fraction in a cold corner of the slate, where he
left it, first, however, giving a parting token of his bitter
malignity by writing the minus sign before it, which made it
perpetually worse than nothing, and reduced it to a state of
irredeemable algebraic bankruptcy. This praiseworthy object being
finally achieved, he proceeded to translate into intelligible
English the result of his calculations, which he announced in the
terms following:

"The testimonial is not the most sanguine. If the time of birth
is given correct there is reason to apprehend that something of
an affective nature occurred at about eight years and ten
months--at 16 x 10 I think I may say, if the time of birth is
given correct, there is from the figures reason to expect that
there is a probability of a similar sitiwation of events. At 24
there was a favorable sitiwation of events, if there was not
somebody or somethin' afflictive on the contrary, the which I am
disposed to think might be possible. At 25, if the time of birth
is given correct, there is reason to expect great likelihoods of
some success in life; I may, it is true, be mistaken in my
calculations, but as the significators are angular, I think there
is indications that such will be the sitiwation of events. At 30,
if the time of birth is given correct, I think you are an
individdyal as may look for some species of misfortin--there will
be some rather singular circumstances occur, which might denote
loss of frie