ting on her head shall
be respected, and, therefore, that the elevation chosen shall be high
enough to enable her to accomplish this to her satisfaction). But I find
I have wandered from my subject; so, without further argument, I will
reiterate my conviction that not all babies are things of beauty and joys
forever.

"ARITHMETICUS." Virginia, Nevada.--"I am an enthusiastic student of
mathematics, and it is so vexatious to me to find my progress
constantly impeded by these mysterious arithmetical technicalities.
Now do tell me what the difference is between geometry and
conchology?"

Here you come again with your arithmetical conundrums, when I am
suffering death with a cold in the head. If you could have seen the
expression of scorn that darkened my countenance a moment ago, and was
instantly split from the center in every direction like a fractured
looking-glass by my last sneeze, you never would have written that
disgraceful question. Conchology is a science which has nothing to do
with mathematics; it relates only to shells. At the same time, however,
a man who opens oysters for a hotel, or shells a fortified town, or sucks
eggs, is not, strictly speaking, a conchologist-a fine stroke of sarcasm
that, but it will be lost on such an unintellectual clam as you. Now
compare conchology and geometry together, and you will see what the
difference is, and your question will be answered. But don't torture me
with any more arithmetical horrors until you know I am rid of my cold. I
feel the bitterest animosity toward you at this moment-bothering me in
this way, when I can do nothing but sneeze and rage and snort
pocket-handkerchiefs to atoms. If I had you in range of my nose now
I would blow your brains out.

TO RAISE POULTRY

--[Being a letter written to a Poultry Society that had conferred a
complimentary membership upon the author. Written about 1870.]

Seriously, from early youth I have taken an especial interest in the
subject of poultry-raising, and so this membership touches a ready
sympathy in my breast. Even as a schoolboy, poultry-raising was a study
with me, and I may say without egotism that as early as the age of
seventeen I was acquainted with all the best and speediest methods of
raising chickens, from raising them off a roost by burning lucifer
matches under their noses, down to lifting them off a fence on a frosty
night by insinuating the end of a warm boar