Msantimacassar requested a quote from Hard Times.
“‘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?’
“‘Nothing, Miss — to the relations and friends of the people who were killed. I shall never learn,’ said Sissy.”
Chapter 9
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