or the present," "I told
you so," "He is sowing his wild oats," "He would have his own way," "A
stitch in time saves nine," "Any other time will do as well," "He has
come out at the little end of the horn." The papers are all short, and
no time is wasted in coming at the point; indeed, there is a succession
of thrusts in each paper, and the reader is prodded more or less
efficiently at each step. Here, to give a single example, is Number
XVIII.: "What is everybody's business is nobody's."

"The consequence is that everybody and nobody are just the same
thing,--a truth most pointedly exemplified in the kitchen of a Southern
nabob. 'Phil!' says the mistress, with the air of an empress. Phil
appears. 'Go tell Peg to tell Sue to come along here and pick up a
needle.' 'Yes, ma'am,' answers Phil, and waddles back like a duck. 'Peg,
mistress says you must tell Sue to go to her and pick up a needle.' Peg
carries the message to Sue, but Sue is busy cleaning a candlestick.
'Well,' says Sue, 'I will go as soon as I have done.' The mistress wants
the needle; she waits ten or fifteen minutes, grows impatient. 'Phil,
did you tell Peg what I told you?' 'Ye--s, ma'am,' says Phil, drawling
out her answer. 'Well, why don't the jade do what I told her? Peg, come
here, you hussy! Did you tell Sue what Phil told you?' 'Yes, ma'am.'
'Well, why don't the lazy trollop come along? Here I am waiting for the
needle! Tell the jade to come instantly!'

"Risum teneatis? Hold, my readers don't know Latin; but can you help
laughing, my friends? Laugh, then, at the Southern nabob, with twenty
fat slaves in his kitchen,--laugh well at him, for there is cause
enough; then come _home_ and laugh.

"You want a good school, perhaps, and so do your neighbors. But whose
business is it to find a teacher, a house, etc.? 'John, I wish you would
speak to William to ask Joseph to desire our friend Daniel to set about
getting a good school. We want one very much; it is a shame to us to be
so negligent.' This is the last we hear of the good school. _What is
everybody's business is nobody's._

"You want to collect the public taxes into the treasury of the State.
The towns choose constables or collectors of taxes. No security is taken
for a faithful discharge of the trust, but a law is passed, which says,
like the mistress to her wenches, Treasurer, do you tell the constable
to collect and pay over the taxes. The collector, like the nabob's
slave, has no motive for