When I was young, before I could tell numbers and operate a scales and so record the weight of my own excrement, the men of the house daily performed this calculation for me. They weighed what I ate when it went in, and daily took the measure of its transformation when it came out.

When the need came upon me, I would bashfully refer the matter to them, and they would fetch the golden platter made for the purpose, and I would straddle it while one of them held it near my knees.

Mr. 03-01, the master of the house, watching the process, would nod and declare some pronouncement: “Sallow in color . . . watery in consistency; altogether a dispirited, morose ejection” or “Solid and stippled with corn . . . brave and manly; a matter for some pride.” The other would take down his words in a column for that purpose.

Across the room, my mother would be learning her lessons on the harpsichord. The music-master counted out measures while I endeavored to deliver what was asked of me.

The gold of which the platter was made, I now descry, was necessary so that the metal should remain inert, and the composition of my fæces more firmly be established. As with so many elements of my upbringing, it took me some time to appreciate what thought had gone into the regulations by which I was raised, and the extreme purity and inviolability of their conception.

When I was five and was taught subtraction, 03-01 showed me how to weigh the golden chamber-pot and subtract its weight to determine more easily how much I had passed in the day. By such lessons did I become acclimated to scientific calculation in even the meanest function, so learning the secrets of tare and gross. When, at about that time, I perceived that others did not have their leavings weighed so, it made a great impression upon me; and I had an even greater sense of my mysterious importance in this murky scheme, the unaccountable preciousness of everything I did to those who strove to watch over me.