ed in. To all,--old and young, innocent
girls and sturdy men,--I so taught the multiplication-table, that one
fatal error was hidden in its array of facts. The nine line is the
difficult one. I buried the error there. "Nine times six," I taught
them, "is fifty-six." The rhyme made it easy. The gilded falsehood
passed from lip to lip, from State to State,--one little speck in a
chain of golden verity. I retired from teaching. Slowly I watched the
growth of the rebellion. At last the aloe blossom shot up,--after its
hundred years of waiting. The Southern heart was fired. I brooded over
my revenge. I repaired to Richmond. I opened a first-class
boarding-house, where all the Cabinet, and most of the Senate, came for
their meals; and I had eight permanents. Soon their brows clouded. The
first flush of victory passed away. Night after night, they sat over
their calculations, which all came wrong. I smiled,--and was a villain!
None of their sums would prove. None of their estimates matched the
performance! Never a muster-roll that fitted as it should do! And
I,--the despised boarding-mistress,--I alone knew why! Often and often,
when Memminger has said to me, with an oath, "Why this discordancy in
our totals?" have my lips burned to tell the secret! But no! I hid it
in my bosom. And when, at last, I saw a black regiment march into
Richmond, singing "John Brown," I cried, for the first time in twenty
years, "Nine times six is fifty-four;" and gloated in my sweet revenge.

Then was hushed the harp of Phebe, and Dick told his story.

THE INSPECTOR OF GAS-METERS' STORY.

Mine is a tale of the ingratitude of republics. It is well-nigh thirty
years since I was walking by the Owego and Ithaca Railroad,--a crooked
road, not then adapted to high speed. Of a sudden I saw that a long
cross timber, on a trestle, high above a swamp, had sprung up from its
ties. I looked for a spike with which to secure it. I found a stone with
which to hammer the spike. But, at this moment, a train approached, down
hill. I screamed. They heard! But the engine had no power to stop the
heavy train. With the presence of mind of a poet, and the courage of a
hero, I flung my own weight on the fatal timber. I would hold it down,
or perish. The engine came. The elasticity of the pine timber whirled
me in the air! But I held on. The tender crossed. Again I was flung in
wild gyrations. But I held on. "It is no bed of roses," I said; "but
what act of Parliament