"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."
[Illustration: "'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 gods 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," assented 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:
[Illustration: "'I THOUGHT MY FATHER A MEAN-SPIRITED ASSASSIN'"]
"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.
Of course there are some superior persons in this world who never were
young. Mr. Pedagog, I doubt not, was ushered into this world with all
three sets of teeth cut, and not wailing as most infants are, but
discussing the most abstruse philosophical problems. His fairy stories
were told him, if ever, in words of ten syllables; and his father's
first remark to him was doubtless an inquiry as to his opinion on the
subject of Latin and Greek in our colleges. It's all right to be this
kind of a baby if you like that sort of thing. For my part, I rejoice to
think that there was once a day when I thought my father a mean-spirited
assassin, because he wouldn't tie a string to the moon and let me make
it rise and set as suited my sweet will. Babies of Mr. Pedagog's sort
are fortunately like angel's visits, few and far between. In spite of
his stand in the matter, though, I can't help thinking there was a great
deal of truth in a rhyme a friend of mine got off on Youth. It fits the
case. He said:
"'Youth is a state of being we attain
In early years; to some 'tis but a crime--
And, like the mumps, most agèd men complain,
It can't be caught, alas! a second time."'
"Your rhymes are interesting, and your reasoning, as usual, is faulty,"
said the School-master. "I passed a very pleasant childhood, though it
was a childhood devoted, as you have insinuated, to serious rather than
to flippant pursuits. I wasn't particularly fond of tag and
hide-and-seek, nor do I think that even as an infant I ever cried for
the moon."
"It would have expanded your chest if you had, Mr. Pedagog," observed
the Idiot, quietly.
"So it would, but I never found myself short-winded, sir," retorted the
School-master, with some acerbity.
"That is evident; but go on," said the Idiot. "You never passed a
childish youth nor a youthful childhood, and therefore what?"
"Therefore, in my present condition, I am normally contented. I have no
youthful follies to look back upon, no indiscretions to regret; I never
knowingly told a lie, and--"
"All of which proves that you never were young," put in the Idiot; "and
you will excuse me if I say it, but my father is the model for me rather
than so exalted a personage as yourself. He is still young, though
turned seventy, and I don't believe on his own account there ever was a
boy who played hookey more, who prevaricated oftener, who purloined
others' fruits with greater frequency than he. He was guilty of every
crime in the calendar of youth; and if there is one thing that delights
him more than another, it is to sit on a winter's night before the
crackling log and tell us yarns about his youthful follies and his
boyhood indiscretions."
"But is he normally a happy man?" queried the School-master.
"No."
"Ah!"
"No. He's an _ab_normally happy man, because he's got his follies and
indiscretions to look back upon and not forward to."
"Ahem!" said Mrs. Smithers.
"Dear me!" ejaculated Mr. Whitechoker.
Mr. Pedagog said nothing, and the breakfast-room was soon deserted.