Decidedly the worst of the exchanges did an Eastern sovereign receive when, having bought several horses from some merchants, he gave them a lac of rupees to purchase more for him. Soon after they had departed, he, in a sportive humor, ordered his vizier to make out a list of all the fools in his dominions. The vizier did so, and put his majesty's name at the head of them. The king asked why. The vizier replied: "Because you entrusted a lac of rupees to men you didn't know, and who will never come back." "Aye, but suppose they should come back?" "Then," said the vizier, "I shall erase your name and insert theirs." In the answer which a German prince was given there seems to be a rebuke for his misgovernment implied. Having in a dream seen three rats, one fat, the other lean, and the third blind, he sent for a celebrated Bohemian gipsy and demanded an explanation. "The fat rat," said she, "is your prime minister, the lean rat your people, and the blind rat yourself." Court Laureate Too Frank. One of the Shahs of Persia was more anxious than able to acquire fame as a poet. He had just completed a new performance in very "peculiar meter," and summoned the court poet into the royal presence to hear the poem read. The laureate, when his opinion was asked (in theatrical language), "damned" the composition. The Shah, enraged at this uncourtly criticism, gave orders that the court poet should be taken to the stable and tied up in the same stall with a donkey. Here the poor sinner remained until his royal rival had perpetrated another poem, when he was again commanded to appear before the throne and submit to a second infliction of sovereign dulness. He listened in silence while the new poem was read, and at the conclusion, his opinion being required, he fell upon his knees and significantly exclaimed to the royal author: "Send me back to the donkey!" The Nation's Debt to Mothers. BY GILSON WILLETS. Great Americans Who Have Achieved World-Wide Reputations By Reason of the Success That Has Attended Their Careers, Ascribe Their Triumphs to Maternal Influence. _An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK. The debt which the United States owes to the mothers of its citizens is one that is beyond the expression of either figures or language. It is a debt on which the republic can only pay the interest--interest that consists of the manifestation of an ever-increasing reverence for American motherhood; for, with all its magnificent resources, the nation is too poor to make even a feeble attempt to pay the principal. No better evidence of the effect of maternal influence on the careers of successful Americans need be adduced than that which is offered here. In the lives of the Presidents of the United States, it is found that the nation owes much to American mothers.