“The left ear,” observed Squills; “and a very sharp blow it was too. Yet you are satisfied, Mr. Caxton?”
“Yes; I think the boy is now as great a blockhead as most boys of his age are,” observed my father with great complacency.
“Dear me, Austin,—a great blockhead?”
“What else did he go to school for?” asked my father.
And observing a certain dismay in the face of his female audience, and a certain surprise in that of his male, he rose and stood on the hearth, with one hand in his waistcoat, as was his wont when about to philosophize in more detail than was usual to him.
“Mr. Squills,” said he, “you have had great experience in families.”
“As good a practice as any in the county,” said Mr. Squills, proudly; “more than I can manage. I shall advertise for a partner.”
“And,” resumed my father, “you must have observed almost invariably that in every family there is what father, mother, uncle, and aunt pronounce to be one wonderful child.”
“One at least,” said Mr. Squills, smiling.
“It is easy,” continued my father, “to say this is parental partiality; but it is not so. Examine that child as a stranger, and it will startle yourself. You stand amazed at its eager curiosity, its quick comprehension, its ready wit, its delicate perception. Often, too, you will find some faculty strikingly developed. The child will have a turn for mechanics, perhaps, and make you a model of a steamboat; or it will have an ear tuned to verse, and will write you a poem like that it has got by heart from ‘The Speaker;’ or it will take to botany (like Pisistratus), with the old maid its aunt; or it will play a march on its sister’s pianoforte. In short, even you, Squills, will declare that it is really a wonderful child.”