fearful that I may lay hold
of the wrong one. I was reading in a book the other day the
statement of a man who says he'd rather have been Louis Agassiz than
the richest man in America. In another little book, "The Kingdom of
Light," the author, who is a lawyer, says that Concord,
Massachusetts, has influenced America to a greater degree than New
York and Chicago combined. I think I'll blot out the superlative
degree in my grammar, for the comparative gives me all the trouble I
can stand.

Everything seems to be better or worse than something else, and there
doesn't seem to be any best or worst. So I'll dispense with the
superlative degree. Whether I buy new-laid eggs, or just eggs, I
can't be certain that I have the best or the worst eggs that can be
found. If I go over to Paris I may find other grades of eggs. Our
Sunday-school teacher wanted a generous contribution of money one
day, and, by way of causing purse-strings to relax, told of a boy who
was putting aside choice bits of meat as he ate his dinner. Upon
being asked by his father why he was doing so, he replied that he was
saving the bits for Rover. He was reminded that Rover could do with
scraps and bones, and that he himself should eat the bits he had put
aside. When he went out to Rover with the plate of leavings, he
patted him affectionately and said:

"Poor doggie! I was going to bring you an offering to-day; but I
guess you'll have to put up with a collection."

I like Robert Burns and think his "To Mary in Heaven" is his finest
poem. But the critics seem to prefer his "Highland Mary." So I
suppose these critics will look at me, with something akin to pity in
the look, and say: "Don't you wish you could?" Years ago some one
planted trees about my house for shade, and selected poplar. Now the
roots of these trees invade the cellar and the cistern, and prove
themselves altogether a nuisance. Of course, I can cut out the
trees, but then I should have no shade. That man, whoever he was,
might just as well have planted elms or maples, but, by some sort of
perversity or ignorance, planted poplars, and here am I, years
afterward, in a state of perturbation about the safety of cellar and
cistern on account of those pesky roots. I do wish that man had
taken a course in arboriculture before he planted those trees. It
might have saved me a deal of bother, and been no worse for him.

Back home, after we had passed through the autograph-album s