"Let's write a book," suggested the Idiot, as he took his place at the
board and unfolded his napkin.
"What about?" asked the Doctor, with a smile at the idea of the Idiot's
thinking of embarking on literary pursuits.
"About four hundred pages long," said the Idiot. "I feel inspired."
"You are inspired," said the School-Master. "In your way you are a
genius. I really never heard of such a variegated Idiot as you are in all
my experience, and that means a great deal, I can tell you, for in the
course of my career as an instructor of youth I have encountered many
idiots."
"Were they idiots before or after having drank at the fount of your
learning?" asked the Idiot, placidly.
Mr. Pedagog glared, and the Idiot was apparently satisfied. To make Mr.
Pedagog glare appeared to be one of the chiefest of his ambitions.
"You will kindly remember, Mr. Idiot," said Mrs. Pedagog at this point,
"that Mr. Pedagog is my husband, and such insinuations at my table are
distinctly out of place."
"I ask your pardon, Mrs. Pedagog," rejoined the offender, meekly.
"Nevertheless, as apart from the question in hand as to whether Mr.
Pedagog inspires idiocy or not, I should like to get the views of this
gathering on the point you make regarding the table. _Is_ this your
table? Is it not rather the table of those who sit about it to regale
their inner man with the good things under which I remember once or twice
in my life to have heard it groan? To my mind, the latter is the truth.
It is _our_ table, because we buy it, and I am forced to believe that
some of us pay for it. I am prepared to admit that if Mr. Brief, for
instance, is delinquent in his weekly payments, his interest in the table
reverts to you until he shall have liquidated, and he is not privileged
to say a word that you do not approve of; but I, for instance, who since
January 1st have been compelled to pay in advance, am at least sole
lessee, and for the time being proprietor of the portion for which I have
paid. You have sold it to me. I have entered into possession, and while
in possession, as a matter of right and not on sufferance, haven't I the
privilege of freedom of speech?"
"You certainly exercise the privilege whether you have it or not,"
snapped Mr. Pedagog.
"Well, I believe in exercise," said the Idiot. "Exercise brings strength,
and if exercising the privilege is going to strengthen it, exercise it I
shall, if I have to hire a gymnasium for the purpose. But to return to
Mrs. Pedagog's remark. It brings up another question that has more or
less interested me. Because Mrs. Smithers married Mr. Pedagog, do we lose
all of our rights in Mr. Pedagog? Before the happy event that reduced our
number from ten to nine--"
"We are still ten, are we not?" asked Mr. Whitechoker, counting the
guests.
"Not if Mr. Pedagog and the late Mrs. Smithers have become one," said the
Idiot. "But, as I was saying, before the happy event that reduced our
number from ten to nine we were permitted to address our friend Pedagog
in any terms we saw fit, and whenever he became sufficiently interested
to indulge in repartee we were privileged to return it. Have we
relinquished that privilege? I don't remember to have done so."
"It's a question worthy of your giant intellect," said Mr. Pedagog,
scornfully. "For myself, I do not at all object to anything you may
choose to say to me or of me. Your assaults are to me as water is to a
duck's back."
"I am sorry," said the Idiot. "I hate family disagreements, and here we
have Mrs. Pedagog taking one side and Mr. Pedagog the other. But whatever
decision may ultimately be reached, of one thing Mrs. Pedagog must be
assured. I on principle side against Mr. Pedagog, and if it be the wish
of my good landlady that I shall refrain from playing intellectual
battledore and shuttlecock with her husband, whom we all revere, I
certainly shall refrain. Hereafter if I indulge in anything that in any
sense resembles repartee with our landlord, I wish it distinctly
understood that an apology goes with it."
"That's all right, my boy," said the School-Master. "You mean well. You
are a little new, that's all, and we all understand you."
"I don't understand him," growled the Doctor, still smarting under the
recollection of former breakfast-table discomfitures. "I wish we could
get him translated."
"If you prescribed for me once or twice I think it likely I should be
translated in short order," retorted the Idiot. "I wonder how I'd go
translated into French?"
"You couldn't be expressed in French," put in the Lawyer. "It would take
some barbarian tongue to do you justice."
"Very well," said the Idiot. "Proceed. Do me justice."
"I can't begin to," said Mr. Brief, angrily.
"That's what I thought," said the Idiot. "That's the reason why you
always do me such great injustice. You lawyers always have to be doing
something, even if it is only holding down a chair so that it won't blow
out of your office window. If you haven't any justice to mete out, you
take another tack and dispense injustice with lavish hand. However, I'll
forgive you if you'll tell me one thing. What's libel, Mr. Brief?"
"None of your business," growled the Lawyer.
"A very good general definition," said the Idiot, approvingly. "If
there's any business in the world that I should hate to have known as
mine it is that of libel. I think, however, your definition is not
definite. What I wanted to know was just how far I could go with remarks
at this table and be safe from prosecution."
"Nobody would ever prosecute you, for two reasons," said the lawyer. "In
a civil action for money damages a verdict against you for ten cents
wouldn't be worth a rap, because the chances are you couldn't pay. In a
criminal action your conviction would be a bad thing, because you would
be likely to prove a corrupting influence in any jail in creation.
Besides, you'd be safe before a jury, anyhow. You are just the sort of
idiot that the intelligent jurors of to-day admire, and they'd acquit you
of any crime. A man has a right to a trial at the hands of a jury of his
peers. I don't think even in a jury-box twelve idiots equal to yourself
could be found, so don't worry."
"Thanks. Have a cigarette?" said the Idiot, tossing one over to the
Lawyer. "It's all I have. If I had a half-dollar I should pay you for
your opinion; but since I haven't, I offer you my all. The temperature of
my coffee seems to have fallen, Mrs. Pedagog. Will you kindly let me have
another cup?"
"Certainly," said Mrs. Pedagog. "Mary, get the Idiot another cup."
Mary did as she was told, placing the empty bit of china at Mrs.
Pedagog's side.
"It is for the Idiot, Mary," said Mrs. Pedagog, coldly. "Take it to him."
"Empty, ma'am?" asked the maid.
"Certainly, Mary," said the Idiot, perceiving Mrs. Pedagog's point. "I
asked for another cup, not for more coffee."
[Illustration: "CERTAINLY. I ASKED FOR ANOTHER CUP"]
Mrs. Pedagog smiled quietly at her own joke. At hair-splitting she could
give the Idiot points.
"I am surprised that Mary should have thought I wanted more coffee,"
continued the Idiot, in an aggrieved tone. "It shows that she too thinks
me out of my mind."
"You are not out of your mind," said the Bibliomaniac. "It would be a
good thing if you were. In replenishing your mental supply you might have
the luck to get better quality."
"I probably should have the luck," said the Idiot. "I have had a great
store of it in my life. From the very start I have had luck. When I think
that I was born myself, and not you, I feel as if I had had more than my
share of good-fortune--more luck than the law allows. How much luck does
the law allow, Mr. Brief?"
"Bosh!" said Mr. Brief, with a scornful wave of his hand, as if he
were ridding himself of a troublesome gnat. "Don't bother me with such
mind-withering questions."
"All right," said the Idiot. "I'll ask you an easier one. Why does not
the world recognize matrimony?"
Mr. Whitechoker started. Here, indeed, was a novel proposition.
"I--I--must confess," said he, "that of all the idiotic questions
I--er--I have ever had the honor of hearing asked that takes the--"
"Cake?" suggested the Idiot.
"--palm!" said Mr. Whitechoker, severely.
"Well, perhaps so," said the Idiot. "But matrimony is the science, or the
art, or whatever you call it, of making two people one, is it not?"
"It certainly is," said Mr. Whitechoker. "But what of it?"
"The world does not recognize the unity," said the Idiot. "Take our good
proprietors, for instance. They were made one by yourself, Mr.
Whitechoker. I had the pleasure of being an usher at the ceremony,
yielding the position of best man gracefully, as is my wont, to the
Bibliomaniac. He was best man, but not the better man, by a simple
process of reasoning. Now no one at this board disputes that Mr. and Mrs.
Pedagog are one, but how about the world? Mr. Pedagog takes Mrs. Pedagog
to a concert. Are they one 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."