r," replied
Dick. "Well, what shall I give you for your secret?" asked Mr. Peel,
and Dick replied, "Gi' me a quart of ale every day as I'm in the mills,
and I'll tell thee all about it." "Agreed," said Mr. Peel, and Dick
whispered very cautiously in his ear, "Chalk your bobbins!" That was
the whole secret, and Mr. Peel soon shot ahead of all his competitors,
for he made machines that would chalk their own bobbins. Dick was
handsomely rewarded with money instead of beer. His little idea has
saved the world millions of dollars.

Trifles light as air often suggest to the thinking mind ideas which
have revolutionized the world.

A poor English boy was compelled by his employer to deposit something
on board a ship about to start for Algiers, in accordance with the
merchant's custom of interesting employees by making them put something
at risk in his business and so share in the gain or loss of each common
venture. The boy had only a cat, which he had bought for a penny to
catch mice in the garret where he slept. In tears, he carried her on
board the vessel. On arriving at Algiers, the captain learned that the
Dey was greatly annoyed by rats, and loaned him the cat. The rats
disappeared so rapidly that the Dey wished to buy the cat, but the
captain would not sell until a very high price was offered. With the
purchase-money was sent a present of valuable pearls for the owner of
Tabby. When the ship returned the sailors were greatly astonished to
find that the boy owned most of the cargo, for it was part of the
bargain that he was to bring back the value of his cat in goods. The
London merchant took the boy into partnership; the latter became very
wealthy, and in the course of business loaned money to the Dey who had
bought the cat. As Lord Mayor of London, our cat merchant was
knighted, and became the second man in the city,--Sir Richard
Whittington.

When John Williams, the martyr missionary of Erromanga, went to the
South Sea Islands, he took with him a single banana-tree from an
English nobleman's conservatory; and now, from that single banana-tree,
bananas are to be found throughout whole groups of islands. Before the
negro slaves in the West Indies were emancipated a regiment of British
soldiers was stationed near one of the plantations. A soldier offered
to teach a slave to read on condition that he would teach a second, and
that second a third, and so on. This the slave faithfully carried out,
though