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October 20, 1909. THE PRESBYTERIAN been punished for things he had done, and had told the truth about it, when it seemed almost as if he would not have been punished if he could only have told a lie about it. But still he knew how his father and mother felt about it, and so he did his best to tell things just as they were. But figures must be strange things if they never told a lie. Perhaps they were real and alive, like himself, and had to do things sometimes that were hard and that they did not like to do. At any rate, he thought about it a good deal. The spring examinations came in March. Roy knew it weeks ahead, and he knew, too, that he ought to be reviewing the work he had gone over; but it was just marble-time then, and it was hard to stay indoors and study when everybody else was out playing marbles. The examination in number work seemed to Roy easier than he had thought it would be. He did all of the first six examples, and was pretty sure he had got them right. But the seventh was a hard one. He worked and worked on it, and still he could not do it, so he skipped that and did the others, and then went back. He tried and tried again, but it would not come out right. Then, when he was very tired, he looked up just as Peter Greenwood asked to leave his seat for a drink of water. Peter left his paper on his desk, and although Roy did not intend to look, he could not help seeing some of the examples. Number seven was right before his eyes, and where Roy had the figure eight, Peter had a nine. Roy went over his own work again and saw that it ought to be a nine, so, without thinking much more about it, he changed his own work and put down the nine where he had had the eight. Being in a hurry, he did not make a very good nine. It was hunchbacked and stooped over,with a big head, that seemed to be hanging down. But he turned in his paper, and hurried out and played marbles till dark. After supper that eveninp he hepan tn think aKnut . . O O the examples again, and he remembered the figure nine that he had put down in place of the eight. He remembered how it looked?how it was bent over, and how it hung its head, as if it was ashamed of something. He kept thinking about it, and even after he had gone to bed the figure stood there before his eyes, looking mean and sorry. The more he thoifght about it the more it seemed to him that he had made the figure lie, when it did not want to, and had not meant to. That was why it looked so mean and ashamed. The first thing the next morning Roy went straight to his teacher. "Please, may I change one of the answers in my examination-paper?" he asked. "Why, my dear boy," she said, "I couldn't let you do that. It wouldn't be fair. 11 you have looked up the answer OUt of school von mtiit not rhanor<? it nnur That would not be right." "Oh, yes'm, it would, because one of my figures lied," said Roy, eagerly. "He didn't mean to, but I made him; but I didn't mean to, either." "Why. child, what do you mean?" Then Roy told the teacher all about it; how he had , OF THE SOUTH. , 11 not got the right answer himself, and how he had seen Peter's paper, and put down the figures he had seen there. The teacher laughed and hugged Roy the way his mother did sometimes. Then she took out his examination-paper, and where the poor, mean-looking figure nine had stood she put a great big eight that stood up so straight and looked so strong and honest that anybody could see at a glance that he was telling the truth, no matter if he had made a mistake. And now Roy knows that if figures ever lie it is not because they want to, but because some one else . makes them.?Selected. HISTORY AT THE DISTRICT SCHOOL. The new teacher glanced smilingly over the school, and was delighted to see so many bright young faces among her new charges. "Now, children," she said, opening her history book, "we will run over our history, so that I may find out what you know. Willie Perkins, you may tell me why Washington crossed over the Delaware." "Ahum?er?why, now, er?ahum," began Willie; "why, becuz?" "Because what, dear?" asked the teacher. "Becuz he couldn't go under it," said Willie. "Dear me, Willie, what an answer!" ejaculated the teacher. "Polly Hicks, you look like a bright little girl. Why did the Father of his Country cross the Delaware ?" "Pleathe, mim," replied Polly, "I gueth it wath becuth the Hudthon wath too far away for him to croth that." "Mercy!" cried the teacher. "Really, you will all have to stay in this afternoon and study your history. I will now test you on arithmetic. Maggie Wilkins, if I were to divide three bananas among seventeen boys, wnat would be the result?" "A riot," said Maggie, speaking up like a little drum major. "Possibly," said the teacher; "but that is not what I mean. Tommy, you may take the question. Three bananas among three boys?that would be one banana apiece for each boy. Now, three bananas among seventeen boys would be what?" "Three bananas, mim," answered Tommy. "I know, but three into seventeen is"?said the teacher. "Three bananas would go into seventeen boys once aim none over, said tommy confidently. It was then that the new teacher resigned.?Harper's Weekly. Johnny came home the other night in high glee, wearing the arithmetic medal. , "What ig that for?" asked his mother. "That's the prize for doing examples," said Johnny. "I did this one: 'If our new baby weighs eleven and a half pounds, and gains an ounce each day'?'cause you told Mr. Smith she did yesterday?'how much will she weigh when she's twenty years oldr And the answer was, four hundred and sixty-six pounds. And the teacher said I earned the prize."