“Then Mr. M’Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he said, Here are the stutterings⁠—”

“Statistics,” said Louisa.

“Yes, Miss Louisa⁠—they always remind me of stutterings, and that’s another of my mistakes⁠—of accidents upon the sea. And I find ( Mr. M’Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were drowned or burnt to death. What is the percentage? And I said, Miss;” here Sissy fairly sobbed as confessing with extreme contrition to her greatest error; “I said it was nothing.”

“Nothing, Sissy?”