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Show A COSTLY COMMA. "Have you your examples all right, Tom ?" asked Mr. Walker, as his son closed the arithmetic, and came to, say good-night. "Near enough," was the reply, "and I'm thankful, thank-ful, for they were a tough lot." "But I don't understand,-" said his father, "what do you mean by 'near enough?' Do jrou mean that they are almost right?" "Why, I mean they are as good as right. There's a point wrong in one, and two figures wrong in another, an-other, but theres no use fussing over such trifles. I'm sure the method's right, and that's the main thing." "Yes," returned his father, "I admit that the method is important; but it is not the only thing. Let me see how much difference the point makes in this example." Tom brought his paper, and, after looking it over, Mr. Walker said: "That makes a difference of4 five thousand dollars. Suppose it represented money mon-ey that some one was going to pay you; then you'd j be pretty anxious to have the point right, wouldn't I you?" "Oh, of course, in that case, I would have to look it over again," said Tom, carelessly. "But this is only an example in school, and it would never make any difference to anybody whether the point was right or not." ' "To any one but you," returned Mr. Walker. "Some years ago there were enumerated in a tariff bill certain articles that might be admitted free of duty. Among them were foreign fruit plants. What would that mean?" "Why, I suppose," said Tom, "plants that bear fruit." , "Yes," said Mr. Walker, "but the clerk who copied the bill never had been taught accuracy, and instead of copying the hyphen, he changed it to a comma, making it read 'fruit, plants, etc.' It was a trifling error not worth noticing you would say but before it could be remedied the government lost two million dollars, as all foreign 'fruits' had to be admitted free of duty. Now, whenever you ere inclined in-clined to be careless, I hope you will remember that two-million-dollar comma." Tom did not say much, but he went upstairs thinking that if a little comma could make that difference, it might be worth while to make a fuss over trifles after all. Martha Clark Rankin in Presbyterian. |