When the good man skulked towards the boxes appointed for the 2 Lacedemonians, that honest people, "more virtuous than polite, rose up all to a man, and with the greatest respect received him among them. The Athenians, being suddenly touched with a sense of the Spartan virtue and their own * degeneracy, gave a thunder of applause, and the old man cried out, "The Athenians understand what is good, but the Lacedemonians practise it."

Who were the Spartans and the Athenians? How did the Spartans set a good example to the Athenians? What remark did the old man make? Explain more virtuous than polite.

1 Athens, in Greece, one of the most ancient cities in the world. It was the capital of Attica, and contained many magnificent temples and other buildings which are quite wonders of art. 2 Lacedemonians or Spartans, natives of Laconia in the south of Greece. more virtuous than polite, preferring to follow the dictates of kindness rather than fashion. degeneracy, a growing worse; becoming degenerate, or degraded.

3

4

A 1DERVIS, travelling through Tartary, having arrived at the town of Balk, went into the king's palace by mistake, thinking it to be a public inn or caravansary. Having looked about him for some time, he entered into a long gallery, where he laid down his wallet, and spread his carpet, in order

to repose himself upon it, after the manner of the Eastern nations.

He had not been long in this posture before he was discovered by some of the guards, who asked him what was his business in that place. The dervis told them he intended to take up his night's lodging in that caravansary. The guards told him, in a very angry manner, that the house he was in was not a caravansary, but the king's palace.

It happened that the king himself passed through the gallery during this debate, and, smiling at the mistake of the dervis, asked him how he could possibly be so dull as not to distinguish a palace from a caravansary. "Sir," says the dervis, "give me leave to ask your majesty a question or two. Who were the persons that lodged in this house when it was first built?" The king replied, his ancestors. "And who," said the dervis, "was the last person that lodged here?" The king replied, his father. "And who is it," said the dervis, "that lodges here at present?" The king told him that it was he himself. "And who," says the dervis, "will be here after you?" The king answered, the young prince, his son. "Ah, sir," said the dervis, "a house that changes its inhabitants so often, and receives such a perpetual succession of guests, is not a palace, but a caravansary."

What is a dervis? What mistake did the dervis make? How did he prove to the king that his palace was like an inn? What moral lesson may be drawn from this story?

'Dervis, a Turkish or Persian monk, especially one who professes extreme poverty and leads an austere life. 2 Tartary, a country to the north-east of Persia.

I AM now more than seventy years old; but I remember very well that, in my earliest years, I was a self-willed youngster, and gave way to violent fits of passion. I had an excellent father and mother. We lived in those days at a very pretty place on the banks of the Clyde, which, your geography will tell you, is one of the principal rivers of Scotland.

Our house was some distance from New Lanark -a village where my father had a large cotton factory, in which many children worked. When you read about Sir William Wallace, in the history of Scotland, you will hear a good deal about Lanark

Now, as there was no post-office in the village. one of our workmen, called James Dunn, an old spinner, who had lost an arm by its being caught in the machinery of the mill, was our letter-carrier.

Though James Dunn had lost one arm, he made excellent use of the other; making bows and arrows, and fifty other nice things for our amusement, and

thus coming into distinguished favour. One day he gave me a clay pipe, showed me how to mix soap-water in due proportion, and then, for the first time in our lives, we witnessed the marvellous rise from the pipe-bowl of the brightly variegated bubble; its slow, graceful ascent into

"For the first time in our lives we witnessed the marvellous rise of the variegated bubble." (p. 239.)

upper air; and, alas! its sudden disappearance, at the very climax of our wonder. My delight was beyond all bounds, and so was my gratitude to the one-armed magician.

We had in the house a boy who went errands, helped now and then in the stables, and whose early morning duty it was to clean the boots and shoes of the household. Sandy, according to my recollection of him, was the worst of bad boys.

His chief pleasure seemed to consist in inventing modes of vexing and enraging us; and he was quite ingenious in his tricks of petty torture. Add to this that he was very jealous of James Dunn's popularity; especially when we told him, as we often did, that we hated him.

One day my sister and I had been out blowing soap-bubbles. In the courtyard we met Sandy, to whom, forgetting for the moment by-gone squabbles, we joyfully related our exploits, and broke out into praises of the pipe-giver as the nicest man that ever was. That nettled Sandy, and he began to abuse our beloved post-carrier.

This made me angry, and I suppose I must have given him some bitter reply; whereupon Sandy snatched the richly prized pipe from my hand, broke off its stem, and threw the fragments into the outhouse hard by.

We hated to be set down as tell-tales, so we did not say a word about this to father or mother. But when, an hour later, I burst into tears at the sight of James Dunn, I had to tell him our story.

He made light of it, wisely remarking that there were more pipes in the world; and, on his return from the town, to my joyful surprise, he gave me another pipe.