The Idiot | Page 6

there?"
"Why not?" asked Mr. Brief.
"That's what I want to know--why not? The world, as represented by
the ticket-taker at the door, says they are not--or implies that they are
not, by demanding tickets for two. They attempt to travel out to
Niagara Falls. The railroad people charge them two fares; the hackman
charges them two fares; the hotel bills are made out for two people. It is
the same wherever they go in the world, and I regret to say that even in
our own home there is a disposition to regard them as two. When I
spoke of there being nine persons here instead of ten, Mr. Whitechoker
himself disputed my point--and yet it was not so much his fault as the
fault of Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog themselves. Mrs. Pedagog seems to cast
doubt upon the unity by providing two separate chairs for the two
halves that make up the charming entirety. Two cups are provided for
their coffee. Two forks, two knives, two spoons, two portions of all the
delicacies of the season which are lavished upon us out of
season--generally after it--fall to their lot. They do not object to being
called a happy couple, when they should be known as a happy single.
Now what I want to know is why the world does not accept the
shrinkage which has been pronounced valid by the church and is
recognized by the individual? Can any one here tell me that?"

[Illustration: "DEMANDS TICKETS FOR TWO"]
No one could, apparently. At least no one endeavored to. The Idiot
looked inquiringly at all, and then, receiving no reply to his question,
he rose from the table.
"I think," he said, as he started to leave the room--"I think we ought to
write that book. If we made it up of the things you people don't know, it
would be one of the greatest books of the century. At any rate, it would
be great enough in bulk to fill the biggest library in America."

III
"I wish I were beginning life all over again," said the Idiot one spring
morning, as he took his accustomed place at Mrs. Pedagog's table.
"I wish you were," said Mr. Pedagog from behind his newspaper.
"Then your parents would have you shut up in a nursery, and it is even
conceivable that you would be receiving those disciplinary attentions
with a slipper that you seem to me so frequently to deserve, were you at
this present moment in the nursery stage of your development."
"My!" ejaculated the Idiot. "What a wonder you are, Mr. Pedagog! It is
a good thing you are not a justice in a criminal court."
"And what, may I venture to ask," said Mr. Pedagog, glancing at the
Idiot over his spectacles--"what has given rise to that extraordinary
remark, the connection of which with anything that has been said or
done this morning is distinctly not apparent?"
"I only meant that a man who was so given over to long sentences as
you are would probably make too severe a judge in a criminal court,"
replied the Idiot, meekly. "Do you make use of the same phraseology in
the class-room that you dazzle us with, I should like to know?"
"And why not, pray?" said Mr. Pedagog.

"No special reason," said the Idiot; "only it does seem to me that an
instructor of youth ought to be more careful in his choice of adverbs
than you appear to be. Of course Doctor Bolus here is under no
obligation to speak more grammatically or correctly than he does.
People call him in to prescribe, not to indulge in rhetorical periods, and
he can write his prescriptions in a sort of intuitive Latin and nobody be
the wiser, but you, who are said to be sowing the seeds of knowledge in
the brain of youth, should be more careful."
"Hear the grammarian talk!" returned Mr. Pedagog. "Listen to this
embryonic Samuel Johnson the Second. What have I said that so
offends the linguistic taste of Lindley Murray, Jun.?"
"Nothing," returned the Idiot. "I cannot say that you have said anything.
I never heard you say anything in my life; but while you can no doubt
find good authority for making use of the words 'distinctly not
apparent,' you ought not to throw such phrases around carelessly. The
thing which is distinct is apparent, therefore to say 'distinctly not
apparent' to a mind that is not given to analysis sounds strange. You
might as well say of a beautiful girl that she is plainly pretty, meaning
of course that she is evidently pretty; but those who are unacquainted
with the idiomatic peculiarities of your speech might ask you if you
meant that she was pretty in a plain sort of