Literary Lapses

Topic IV.--"Why was I born? Why should I breathe?" Here I quite agree with you. I don't think you ought to breathe. Topic V.--You demand that I shall show you the man whose soul is dead and then mark him. I am awfully sorry; the man was around here all day yesterday, and if I had only known I could easily have marked him so that we could pick him out again. Topic VI.--I notice that you frequently say, "Oh, for the sky of your native land." Oh, for it, by all means, if you wish. But remember that you already owe for a great deal. Topic VII.--On more than one occasion you wish to be informed, "What boots it, that you idly dream?" Nothing boots it at present--a fact, sir, which ought to afford you the highest gratification. The Force of Statistics They were sitting on a seat of the car, immediately in front of me. I was consequently able to hear all that they were saying. They were evidently strangers who had dropped into a conversation. They both had the air of men who considered themselves profoundly interesting as minds. It was plain that each laboured under the impression that he was a ripe thinker. One had just been reading a book which lay in his lap. "I've been reading some very interesting statistics," he was saying to the other thinker. "Ah, statistics" said the other; "wonderful things, sir, statistics; very fond of them myself." "I find, for instance," the first man went on, "that a drop of water is filled with little ... with little ... I forget just what you call them ... little--er--things, every cubic inch containing--er--containing ... let me see...."