by the poet Alpheus. It's Italian—Italian, Messieurs." And the courier proceeded to translate them thus:
"Exceedingly impressive," said one of the solemn faces.
"Exceedingly," echoed the other.
At this moment the president of the ——— Bank in ——— street, a little in advance of his family, to show his leading position, reached the spot.
"Strange," he exclaimed, "that in these old countries they should have introduced so few modern improvements!" Turning to his daughter, he demanded "The English of those words!" It was given pretty correctly, for the young lady had "attended" to the modern languages.
"Now, then," said the bank president, "this is absolutely untrue. Any body knows that the sun comes round every day; and any body ought to know, too, that in cloudy weather the shadow do n't come. Ridiculous! Preposterous! All stuff! This machine may do well enough here, but I hardly think it would answer for a rainy day at the bank. Our notary would not know when to protest."
"But, father," said the daughter, timidly, "how do we ascertain when we have the true time except by the sun? and how else can we correct our time?"
"Child!" replied the financier, in an authoritative tone, "I am astonished at this display of your ignorance after such an education as you have received. How do we correct our time? By the chronometer, to be sure!"
And the president of the ——— Bank in ——— street strode on.
The next comer was a pragmatical old gentleman, having in his charge, as pupils, two young scions, who appeared particularly to dis-
