itch for writing bothered me at an early age, and I _had_ to scratch. Not that there was any merit in the schoolgirl effusions; it was only a facility for stringing words together, an aptness for quotation, and a tendency to moralizing and to figurative writing, that let themselves loose in them. It has always irritated me to see persons too credulous, and I enjoyed punishing them for their credulity. One of our classmates could be made to believe the most absurd things. Sometimes we had spelling bouts the last few minutes before the close of school, and the principal would require us to define the words spelled. Sprinkled in with the long columns of English words were occasional Latin ones. A demon of some sort possessed me one day on seeing _Sal Atticum_ in the spelling lesson. It was my first year of Latin and I chose Bessie Barnes, the credulous one, who had not studied Latin at all, for my victim. Whispering to her I said, “Shall I tell you the definition of the Latin words in to-day’s lesson?” Of course she was glad of help, so, telling her correctly the meaning of the others, when I came to _Sal Atticum_, pausing and laughing (perforce at the absurd joke I meant to perpetrate on her) I turned it off by saying that it was such a funny thing to have in the spelling lesson; and the little goose believed me when I told her it meant, “With Sal in the Attic”! We both laughed at the absurdity of it, then I went on soberly to explain that “Sal” was just Sal, because proper names do not change; then, reminding her that in Latin the words do not come in consecutive order, as in English, I said that “_cum_” means “_with_”; that “attic” is the same in both languages, and that “attic” being in the ablative case, “in” is understood, thus making the translation, “With Sal in the attic.” Then, drilling her on the meaning of all the foreign words in the column, I got heaps of fun every time she came to _Sal Atticum_ and gave the ludicrous definition. And as we both laughed at the comical phrase, she said she hoped it would not fall to her to define it. I have forgotten the outcome. I can’t be sure, but think we gave “Prof.” the tip and got him to ask her its meaning; but I remember distinctly her indignation when she learned how I had hoodwinked her.