"I think I know all my spelling. But I can't get some of the addition tables right when I ask myself questions. I wish there had not been any nine."
"The world couldn't get along without the nine. It is very necessary."
"Most of the good things are hard," she said with a philosophic sigh.
He laughed.
"Eudora does not like tables either."
"I will tell you a famous thing about nine that you can't do with any other figure. How much is ten and ten?"
"Why, twenty, and ten more are thirty, and so on. It is easy as turning over your hand."
"Ten and nine."
Doris looked nonplused and began to draw her brow in perplexed lines.
"Nine is only one less than ten. Now, if you can remember that——"