"So I perceive," said Ranney, coolly.
"The fault I find with you geniuses—"
"We geniuses!!—"
"Is," said Henry, "you perpetually fly and caracol about, and just because you can, apparently, and for the fun of the thing."
"Eagles fly," said Bart.
"And so do butterflies, and other gilded insects."
"Therefore, flying should be dispensed with, I suppose," said Bart. "Because things of mere painted wings, all wing and nothing else, can float in the lower atmosphere, are all winged things to be despised? Birds of strong flight can light and build on or near the ground, but your barn-yard fowl can hardly soar to the top of the fence for his crow."
"But your geniuses, Bart, will not work, will not strip to the long, patient, delving drudgery necessary to unravel, separate, analyze, weigh, measure, estimate and count, and come to like work for work's sake, and so grow to do the best and most work. They deal a few heavy blows, scatter things, pick up a few glittering pebbles, and—"
"Leave to dullards the riches of the mines they never would have found," broke in Bart.
"And fly away into upper air," pursued Henry.