I reached the bottom muddy and bruised about the elbows, but safe.

I lit the candle, made an examination of the rock, selected some specimens, and shouted to Boggs to hoist away.

No answer.

Presently a head appeared in the circle of daylight away aloft, and a voice came down: 

“Are you all set?”

“All set-hoist away!”

“Are you comfortable?”

“Perfectly.”

“Could you wait a little?”

“Oh, certainly-no particular hurry.”

“Well-good-bye.”

“Why, where are you going?”

“After the school report!”

And he did.

I stayed down there an hour, and surprised the workmen when they hauled up and found a man on the rope instead of a bucket of rock.

I walked home, too—­five miles-up-hill.

We had no school report next morning—­but the Union had.

AN IDEAL FRENCH ADDRESS

     Extract from “Paris notes,” In “Tom Sawyer abroad,” Etc.

I am told that a French sermon is like a French speech—­it never names an historical event, but only the date of it; if you are not up in dates, you get left.  A French speech is something like this: 

“Comrades, citizens, brothers, noble parts of the only sublime and perfect nation, let us not forget that the 21st January cast off our chains; that the 10th August relieved us of the shameful presence of foreign spies; that the 5th September was its own justification before Heaven and humanity; that the 18th Brumaire contained the seeds of its own punishment; that the 14th July was the mighty voice of liberty proclaiming the resurrection, the new day, and inviting the oppressed peoples of the earth to look upon the divine face of France and live; and let us here record our everlasting curse against the man of the 2d December, and declare in thunder tones, the native tones of France, that but for him there had been no 17th Mardi in history, no 12th October, nor 9th January, no 22d April, no 16th November, no 30th September, no 2d July, no 14th February, no 29th June, no 15th August, no 31st May—­that but for him, France, the pure, the grand, the peerless, had had a serene and vacant almanac to-day.”

I have heard of one French sermon which closed in this odd yet eloquent way: 

“My hearers, we have sad cause to remember the man of the 13th January.  The results of the vast crime of the 13th January have been in just proportion to the magnitude of the act itself.  But for it there had been no 30th November—­sorrowful spectacle!  The grisly deed of the 16th June had not been done but for it, nor had the man of the 16th June known existence; to it alone the 3d September was due, also the fatal 12th October.  Shall we, then, be grateful for the 13th January, with its freight of death for you and me and all that breathe?  Yes, my friends, for it gave us also that which had never come but for it, and it alone —­the blessed 25th December.”