Marco pushed the
point of his pencil into this staple, in order to see if it would go
through. It did go through in an instant, and slipping through his
fingers, it fell out of the window.
"Dear me! there goes my pencil. My pencil has dropped out of the
window, cousin Forester; shall I go out and get it?"
"Act according to your own judgment," said Forester. At the same time
he was saying this, he made another mark upon his paper.
"Why, you ought not to count that, cousin Forester," said Marco, "for
I don't know whether you'd wish me to go and get that pencil, or take
another out of my desk."
"Act according to your own judgment," replied Forester.
Marco looked perplexed and troubled. In fact, he was a little
displeased to find that Forester would not answer him. He thought
that, it was an unforeseen emergency, which Forester ought to have
considered an exception to his rule. But he was obliged to decide the
question for himself, and he concluded to go out for his pencil. It
took him some time to find it in the grass, and after he had found it,
he stopped for some time longer, to watch some ants which were passing
in and out, at the entrance to their nest, each one bringing up a
grain of sand in his forceps.
