Coffee and Repartee Part 9

"Any one with a modic.u.m of brain knows what you meant, Mr. Whitechoker,"

volunteered the School-master.

"Certainly," observed the Idiot, sc.r.a.ping the b.u.t.ter from his toast; "but to those who have more than a modic.u.m of brains my reverend friend's remark was not entirely clear. If I am talking of cotton, and a gentleman chooses to state that it looks like snow, I know exactly what he means. He doesn't mean that the day looks like snow, however; he refers to the cotton. Mr. Whitechoker, talking about coffee, chooses to state that it looks like rain, which it undoubtedly does. I, realizing that, as Mrs. Smithers says, it is not the gentleman's habit to attack too violently the food which is set before him, manifest some surprise, and, giving the gentleman the benefit of the doubt, afford him an opportunity to set himself right."

"Change the subject," said the Bibliomaniac, curtly.

"With pleasure," answered the Idiot, filling his gla.s.s with cream.

"We'll change the subject, or the object, or anything you choose. We'll have another breakfast, or another variety of biscuits _frappe_--anything, in short, to keep peace at the table. Tell me, Mr. Pedagog," he added, "is the use of the word 'it,' in the sentence 'it looks like rain,'

perfectly correct?"

"I don't know why it is not," returned the School-master, uneasily. He was not at all desirous of parleying with the Idiot.

"And is it correct to suppose that 'it' refers to the day--is the day supposed to look like rain?--or do we simply use 'it' to express a condition which confronts us?"

"It refers to the latter, of course."

"Then the full text of Mr. Whitechoker's remark is, I suppose, that 'the rainy condition of the atmosphere which confronts us looks like rain?'"

"Oh, I suppose so," sighed the School-master, wearily.

"Rather an unnecessary sort of statement that!" continued the Idiot.

"It's something like a.s.serting that a man looks like himself, or, as in the case of a child's primer--

"'See the cat?'

"'Yes, I see the cat.'

"'What is the cat?'

"'The cat is a cat. Scat cat!'"

At this even Mrs. Smithers smiled.

"I don't agree with Mr. Pedagog," put in the Bibliomaniac, after a pause.

Here the School-master shook his head warningly at the Bibliomaniac, as if to indicate that he was not in good form.

"So I observe," remarked the Idiot. "You have upset him completely. See how Mr. Pedagog trembles?" he added, addressing the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I BELIEVE YOU'D BLOW OUT THE GAS IN YOUR BED-ROOM'"]

"I don't mean that way," sneered the Bibliomaniac, bound to set Mr.

Whitechoker straight. "I mean that the word 'it,' as employed in that sentence, stands for day. The day looks like rain."

"Did you ever see a day?" queried the Idiot.

"Certainly I have," returned the Bibliomaniac.

"What does it look like?" was the calmly put question.

The Bibliomaniac's impatience was here almost too great for safety, and the manner in which his face colored aroused considerable interest in the breast of the Doctor, who was a good deal of a specialist in apoplexy.

"Was it a whole day you saw, or only a half-day?" persisted the Idiot.

"You may think you are very funny," retorted the Bibliomaniac. "I think you are--"

"Now don't get angry," returned the Idiot. "There are two or three things I do not know, and I'm anxious to learn. I'd like to know how a day looks to one to whom it is a visible object. If it is visible, is it tangible? and, if so, how does it feel?"

"The visible is always tangible," a.s.serted the School-master, recklessly.

"How about a red-hot stove, or manifest indignation, or a view from a mountain-top, or, as in the case of the young man in the novel who 'suddenly waked,' and, 'looking anxiously about him, saw no one?'"

returned the Idiot, imperturbably.

"Tut!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Bibliomaniac. "If I had brains like yours, I'd blow them out."

"Yes, I think you would," observed the Idiot, folding up his napkin.

"You're just the man to do a thing like that. I believe you'd blow out the gas in your bedroom if there wasn't a sign over it requesting you not to." And filling his match-box from the landlady's mantel supply, the Idiot hurried from the room, and soon after left the house.

XII

"If my father hadn't met with reverses--" the Idiot began.

"Did you really have a father?" interrupted the School-master. "I thought you were one of these self-made Idiots. How terrible it must be for a man to think that he is responsible for you!"

"Yes," rejoined the Idiot; "my father finds it rather hard to stand up under his responsibility for me; but he is a brave old gentleman, and he manages to bear the burden very well with the aid of my mother--for I have a mother, too, Mr. Pedagog. A womanly mother she is, too, with all the natural follies, such as fondness for and belief in her boy. Why, it would soften your heart to see how she looks on me. She thinks I am the most everlastingly brilliant man she ever knew--excepting father, of course, who has always been a hero of heroes in her eyes, because he never rails at misfortune, never spoke an unkind word to her in his life, and just lives gently along and waiting for the end of all things."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'HIS FAIRY STORIES WERE TOLD HIM IN WORDS OF TEN SYLLABLES'"]

"Do you think it is right in you to deceive your mother in this way--making her think you a young Napoleon of intellect when you know you are an Idiot?" observed the Bibliomaniac, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Why certainly I do," returned the Idiot, calmly. "It's my place to make the old folks happy if I can; and if thinking me nineteen different kinds of a genius is going to fill my mother's heart with happiness, I'm going to let her think it. What's the use of destroying other people's idols even if we do know them to be hollow mockeries? Do you think you do a praiseworthy act, for instance, when you kick over the heathen's stone G.o.ds and leave him without any at all? You may not have noticed it, but I have--that it is easier to pull down an idol than it is to rear an ideal. I have had idols shattered myself, and I haven't found that the pedestals they used to occupy have been rented since. They are there yet and empty--standing as monuments to what once seemed good to me--and I'm no happier nor no better for being disillusioned. So it is with my mother. I let her go on and think me perfect. It does her good, and it does me good because it makes me try to live up to that idea of hers as to what I am. If she had the same opinion of me that we all have she'd be the most miserable woman in the world."

"We don't all think so badly of you," said the Doctor, rather softened by the Idiot's remarks.

"No," put in the Bibliomaniac. "You are all right. You breathe normally, and you have nice blue eyes. You are graceful and pleasant to look upon, and if you'd been born dumb we'd esteem you very highly. It is only your manners and your theories that we don't like; but even in these we are disposed to believe that you are a well-meaning child."

"That is precisely the way to put it," a.s.sented the School-master. "You are harmless even when most annoying. For my own part, I think the most objectionable feature about you is that you suffer from that unfortunately not uncommon malady, extreme youth. You are young for your age, and if you only wouldn't talk, I think we should get on famously together."

"You overwhelm me with your compliments," said the Idiot. "I am sorry I am so young, but I cannot be brought to believe that that is my own fault. One must live to attain age, and how the deuce can one live when one boards?"

As no one ventured to reply to this question, the force of which very evidently, however, was fully appreciated by Mrs. Smithers, the Idiot continued:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I THOUGHT MY FATHER A MEAN-SPIRITED a.s.sa.s.sIN'"]

"Youth is thrust upon us in our infancy, and must be endured until such a time as Fate permits us to account ourselves cured. It swoops down upon us when we have neither the strength nor the brains to resent it.