1. What kinds of cheating are mentioned? Which is most dangerous?
2. Littlejohn could detect and put down lies because he kept his head clear and told the truth to himself. What lines tell you this? Who is the person most likely to deceive you about right and wrong?
3. Explain: spurious, mazes, logic, despite, quacks, rote, policy, rectitude, cant, bigotry, specious.
An old clock that had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer's morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped. Upon this, the dial plate (if we may credit the fable) changed countenance with alarm; 5 the hands made a vain effort to continue their course; the wheels remained motionless with surprise; the weights hung speechless; and each member felt disposed to lay the blame on the others. At length the dial instituted a formal inquiry into the cause of the stoppage; when hands, wheels, 10 weights, with one voice, protested their innocence. But now a faint tick was heard below from the pendulum, who thus spoke:
"I confess myself to be the sole cause of the stoppage; and I am willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my 15 reasons. The truth is, that I am tired of ticking." Upon hearing this the old clock became so enraged that it was on the very point of striking.
"Lazy wire!" exclaimed the dial plate, holding up its hands. 20
"Very good!" replied the pendulum. "It is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me--it is vastly easy for _you_, I say, to accuse other people of laziness! You, who have had nothing to do all your life but to stare people in 25 the face and to amuse yourself with watching all that goes on in the kitchen! Think how you would like to be shut up for life in this dark closet and wag backward and forward, year after year, as I do."
"As to that," said the dial, "is there not a window in your house on purpose for you to look through?"
"For all that," resumed the pendulum, "it is very dark 5 here; and although there is a window, I dare not stop, even for an instant, to look out. Besides I am really tired of my way of life; and if you wish, I'll tell you how I took this disgust at my employment. This morning I happened to be calculating how many times I should have to tick in the 10 course of only the next twenty-four hours; perhaps some of you, above there, can give me the exact sum."