unrestrainedly. Her husband hastily shoved the stem of his pipe between
his lips, sunk lower down in the chair, and smoked so hard that his head
soon became almost invisible in the vapor.

By-and-by he roused himself and asked Nick to begin with the first
problem and reason out the result he obtained with each one in turn.

Nick did so, and on the last but one his parent tripped him. A few
pointed questions showed the boy that he was wrong. Then the hearty
"Yaw, yaw, yaw!" of the father rang out, and looking at the solemn
visage of his wife, he asked:

"Vy you don't laughs now, eh? Yaw, yaw, yaw!"

The wife meekly answered that she did not see anything to cause mirth,
though Nick proved that he did.

Not only that, but the son became satisfied from the quickness with
which his father detected his error, and the keen reasoning he gave,
that he purposely went wrong on the first problem read to him with the
object of testing the youngster.

Finally, he asked him whether such was not the case. Many persons in the
place of Mr. Ribsam would have been tempted to fib, because almost every
one will admit any charge sooner than that of ignorance; but the
Dutchman considered lying one of the meanest vices of which a man can be
guilty. Like all of his countrymen, he had received a good school
education at home, besides which his mind possessed a natural
mathematical bent. He said he caught the answer to the question the
minute it was asked him, and, although Mr. Layton may not have seen it