“But really, Alley, this is a very important study, and I think that every one ought to understand it, if they can.”

“Not many know anything about it.”

“And that does not prove that it is useless. There are a great many things of importance that many people know nothing about.”

“That’s so; but most people have got along without it. My father and mother never studied it in their lives, and I never did, and we’ve got along well enough so far without it.”

“Perhaps you would have got along better with it. I’ve learned enough already to be of great service to me, and I intend to know more yet.”

“But it is only a little time that you get here,” suggested Alley. “Just as you get at it somebody comes. I don’t think much of that.”

“We don’t all think alike,” responded Abraham.

“That’s a fact; I’m pretty sure that if you thought as I do you wouldn’t be troubling your brains over that grammar.”

“Perhaps nobody else would, and the ‘King’s English’ would be shockingly murdered. We should have another Babel almost.’

“How’s that? For the life of me I can’t see any particular good that comes of studyin’ grammar.

“That is because you do not know even the definition of it,” replied Abraham. “Grammar is the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety. And that shows what good it does.”

“Perhaps it does.”

“Of course it does, whether you can see it or not; and I am willing to study for it by day and night.”

“I should think it was about enough to study by day, and let the nights go,” said Alley, demurely.

“There is where we don’t think alike again. It would take me a long time to master this grammar if I should study only by leisure moments in the daytime. I have used up from two to three hours over it every night.”

“Just like you, Abe.”

“Just like every poor fellow like me, who must do so, or know little or nothing. Dr. Franklin carried a book in his pocket, to study when he could, and he kept one by his side in the printing-office to read every minute he had to spare.”

“How do you know that? Was you there?” and Alley’s roguishness appeared in his expressive eye.

“Probably,” answered Abraham, in the same vein of remark.

“But did you ever read the Life of Dr. Franklin?”

“Certainly, several years ago; and if he had not done just what you think is quite foolish he would have made candles all his life.”

“And that would be sheddin’ light on the world, I’m sure,” said Alley, with an attempt at punning. “Lucky that somebody was willing to make candles.”