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.
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