Focus, "it is impossible for me to keep your
law. I am obliged to earn eight pennies every day, therefore was I
forced to work yesterday."

"And why eight pennies?" asked the emperor.

"Every day through the year," answered Focus, "I am bound to repay
two pennies I borrowed in my youth; two I lend; two I lose; and two I
spend."

"How is this?" said the emperor; "explain yourself further."

"Your Majesty," replied Focus, "listen to me. I am bound each day to
repay two pennies to my old father, for when I was a boy he expended
upon me daily the like sum. Now he is poor and needs my assistance, and
I return what I formerly borrowed. Two other pennies I lend my son, who
is pursuing his studies, in order that, if by chance I should fall into
poverty, he may restore the loan to me, just as I am now doing to his
grandfather. Again, I lose two pennies on my wife, who is a scold
and has an evil temper. On account of her bad disposition I consider
whatever I give her entirely lost. Lastly, two other pennies I spend on
myself for meat and drink. I cannot do all this without working
every day. You now know the truth, and, I pray you, give a righteous
judgment."

"Friend," said the emperor, "you have answered well. Go and work
diligently at your calling."

That same day the emperor annulled the law forbidding labor on his
son's birthday. Not long after this he died, and Focus the carpenter,
on account of his singular wisdom, was elected emperor in his stead. He
governed wisely, and after his death there was deposited in the royal
archives a portrait of Focus wearing a crown adorned with eight pennies.

THE CHAMPION STONE-CUTTER

BY HUGH MILLER

David Fraser was a famous Scotch hewer. On hearing that it had been
remarked among a party of Edinburgh masons that, though regarded as the
first of Glasgow stone-cutters, he would find in the eastern capital
at least his equals, he attired himself most uncouthly in a long-tailed
coat of tartan, and, looking to the life the untamed, untaught,
conceited little Celt, he presented himself on Monday morning, armed
with a letter of introduction from a Glasgow builder, before the foreman
of an Edinburgh squad of masons engaged upon one of the finer buildings
at that time in the course of erection.

The letter specified neither his qualifications nor his name. It had
been written merely to secure for him the necessary employment, and the
necessary employment it did secure.

The