author. The same is true of the digits. I make constant use of
them, and sometimes even abuse them, as if I had a clear title to
them. I have often wondered who worked out the table of logarithms,
and have thought how much more agreeable life has been for many
people because of his work. I know my own debt to him is large, and
I dare say many others have a like feeling. Even the eighth-grade
boys in the Castle Road school, London, share this feeling,
doubtless, for in a test in arithmetic that I saw there I noted that
in four of the twelve problems set for solution they had permission
to use their table of logarithms. They probably got home earlier for
supper by their use of this table.

I hereby make my humble apologies to Mr. Thomas A. Edison for my
thoughtlessness in not writing to him before this to thank him for
his many acts of kindness to me. I have been exceedingly careless in
the matter. I owe him for the comfort and convenience of this
beautiful electric light, and yet have never mentioned the matter to
him. He has a right to think me an ingrate. I have been so busy
enjoying the gifts he has sent me that I have been negligent of the
giver. As I think of all my debts to scientists, inventors, artists,
poets, and statesmen, and consider how impossible it is for me to pay
all my debts to all these, try as I may, I begin to see how difficult
it was for Diogenes to find a man who paid all his debts in full.
Hence, the lantern.

It seems to me that, of the varieties of late potatoes the Carmen is
the premier. Part of the charm of hoeing potatoes lies in
anticipating the joys of the potato properly baked. Charles Lamb may
write of his roast pig, and the epicures among the ancients may
expatiate upon the glories of a dish of peacock's tongues and their