i?UN AND FINANCE OF BOYHOOD 29 



pens, ink, and paper, and told me to write down 

 figures as he gave them to me. When I had 

 written perhaps a dozen digits he told me to mul- 

 tiply the number by one hundred and twenty- 

 five, and I wrote the result as fast as I could put 

 down the figures. 



"How did you multiply so quickly?'" he asked. 



"I didn't multiply; I divided by eight." 



"How did you multiply forty-five by forty- 

 five?" 



"I multiplied the first figure by a number 

 larger by one and suffixed twenty-five. That's 

 the short way to square a number that ends with 

 five. You have been giving me easy ones, sir. 



"Looks as if they might all be easy to you, 

 was said with a smile that made me think I had 

 passed my examination. But the smile faded 

 when he saw my handwriting, which I have not 

 even yet succeeded in licking into symmetry. 



"I think we can work together," said he, and 

 I can bring on an attack of goose-flesh to-day by 

 recalling the rioting of my verdant imagination 

 in the fraction of a minute that followed. I 



>j 



?5 



