of an
all-night ride over bad roads through the dark was anything but inviting.
Indeed, it was so forbidding that I resolved to make one more appeal to
the conductor.

"You simply must take me to Aurora!" I said, with intense earnestness.

"I can't do it," he answered. "But I believe you are what you represent
yourself to be, and I will lend you the money personally. It is only one
dollar and twelve cents."

"Well, sir, you could have knocked me down with the flat side of a
palm-leaf fan. I had more than two thousand dollars in currency in my
pocket, but it had never for an instant occurred to me that I could pay my
fare and ride on that train. I showed the conductor a wad of money that
made his eyes stick out.

"I thought it was funny," said he, "that a man in your position couldn't
raise one dollar and twelve cents. It was that that made me believe you
were playing a trick to see if I would violate the rule."

"The simple truth was, I had ridden everywhere on passes so many years,
that it did not occur to me that I could ride in any other way."

+Oral Composition III.+[Footnote: Oral compositions should be continued
throughout the course. A few minutes may be profitably used once or twice
each week in having each member of the class stand before the class and
relate briefly some incident which he has witnessed since the last meeting
of the class. Exercises like those on page 53 also will furnish
opportunities for oral work.]--_Relate to the class some personal
incident suggested by one of the following subjects_:--

1. A day with my cousin.
2. Caught in the act.
3. A joke on me.
4. My peculiar mistake.
5. My experience on a farm.
6. My experience in a strange Sunday school.
7. What I saw when I was coming to school.

(In preparation for this exercise, consider the point of your story. What
must you tell first in order to enable the hearers to understand the
point? Can you say anything that will make them want to know what the
point is without really telling them? Can you lead up to it without too
long a delay? Can you stop when the point has been made?)

+8. Theme Writing and Correcting.+--Any written exercise, whether long or
short, is called a theme throughout this book. Just as one learns to skate
by skating, so one learns to write by writing; therefore many themes will
be required. Since the clear expression of thought is one of the essential
characteristics of every theme, theme correc