MAX’S LOGIC. 33

I were a Brahmin. Or a genii. I want mamma to go to
Oregon and be a trapper. She thought she would n’t. Won’t
you?”

Max felt as if he might at that moment, and consider him-
self well off. His big black “ Logic” tumbled to the floor.
He started up. He ran his hands through his hair. He
paced the room. Trotty thought he was going crazy, and
sat really still, for fear.

“ T have it!” said Max, at last, and went off up garret.

He came down with a queer-looking black thing under his
arm, dusty and rusty, and very mysterious. He put it on
the table (having knocked off his mother’s work-basket and
Lill’s paint-box, in making room for it), and dusted it off
with his handkerchief, and brushed it up with the stove-
holder. Then he opened it, and out fell what looked to
Trotty like little iron blocks.

“T never builded a black block-house,” said Trotty, doubt-
_ fully. “It isn’t a coffin, is it? I used to play funerals when
I was a little boy.”

“Tt is a printing-press,”’ said Max.

“ Whose? ” asked Trotty.

“Mine,” said Max; “ I used to have it when I was a little
boy. I didn’t mean you should have it till you were bigger,
but we ’re in a tight place, it strikes me.”

“Who’s tight?”’ asked Trotty, looking wild; “and I
should just like to know how that thing ever stayed in this

house all my life, and nobody gave it to me before!”

2* c