[Certainly Thompson would be a lawyer, ready for any emergency.]
In times past there was in a certain law school an aged and eccentric
professor. "General information" was the old gentleman's hobby. He held
it as incontrovertible that if a young lawyer possessed a large fund of
miscellaneous knowledge, combined with an equal amount of common sense,
he would be successful in life. So every year the professor put on his
examination papers a question very far removed from the subject of criminal
law. One year it was, "How many kinds of trees are there in the college
yard?" the next, "What is the make-up of the present English cabinet?"
Finally the professor thought he had invented the best question of his
life. It was, "Name twelve animals that inhabit the polar regions." The
professor chuckled as he wrote this down. He was sure he would "pluck"
half the students on that question and it was beyond a doubt that that
opprobrious young loafer Thompson would fail. But when the professor read
the examination papers, Thompson, who had not answered another question,
was the only man who had solved the polar problem. This was Thompson's
answer: "Six seals and six polar bears." Thompson got his degree with
distinction.