"Read it, please."
Marjorie began to read, then stopped and laughed.
"I can't."
"You wouldn't enjoy a book very much written in that style, would you?"
"I couldn't enjoy it at all. I wouldn't read it"
"Well, if you can't read it, explain it to me. How many persons are in
the coach?"
"That's easy enough! There's Mr. Miller, that's one; there's the
clergyman, that's two!"
"Perhaps that is only one; Mr. Miller may be a clergyman."
"So he may. But how can I tell?" asked Marjorie, perplexed. "Well, then,
his son makes two."
"Whose son?"
"Why, Mr. Miller's!"
"Perhaps he was the clergyman's son," returned Miss Prudence seriously.
"Well, then," declared Marjorie, "I guess there were eight people! Mr.
Miller, the clergyman, the son, the lawyer, Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, a
lady, and a child!"
"Placing a comma after each there are eight persons," said Miss Prudence
making the commas.
"Yes," assented Marjorie, watching her.
Beneath it Miss Prudence wrote the sentence again, punctuating thus:
"The persons inside the conch were Mr. Miller, a clergyman; his son, a
lawyer; Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, his lady; and a little child."
"Now how many persons are there inside this coach?"
"Three gentlemen, a lady and child," laughed Marjorie--"five instead of
eight. Those little marks have caused three people to vanish."
"And to change occupations."
"Yes, for Mr. Miller is a clergyman, his son a lawyer, and Mr. Angelo has
become a foreigner.
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