"She could in my story," persists Mr. Browne, with all the air of one who, even to avoid unpleasantness, would not consent to go against the dictates of his conscience.
"She couldn't, I tell you," roars Tommy, now thoroughly incensed. "She couldn't climb. Her horns would stick in the branches. She'd be too heavy!"
"I admit, Thomas," says Mr. Browne gravely, "that your argument sounds as though there were some sense in it. But who am I that I should dare to disbelieve ancient history? It is unsafe to throw down old landmarks, to blow up the bulwarks of our noble constitution. Beware, Tommy! never tread on the tail of Truth. It may turn and rend you."
"Her name isn't Truth," says Tommy. "Our cow's name is Biddy, and she never ran up a tree in her life."
"She's young," says Mr. Browne. "She'll learn. So are you—you'll learn. And remember this, my boy, always respect old legends. A disregard for them will so unsettle you that finally you will find yourself—at the foot of the gallows in all human probability. I suppose," sadly, "that you are even so far gone in scepticism as to doubt the glorious truth of the moon's being made of green cheese?"
"Father says that's nonsense," says Tommy promptly, and with an air of triumph, "and father always knows."
"I blush for your father," says Mr. Browne with increasing melancholy. "Both he and you are apparently sunk in heathen darkness. Well, well; we will let the question of the moon go by, though I suppose you know, Tommy, that the real and original moon first rose in Cheshire."
"No, I don't," says Tommy, with a militant glare. "There was once a Cheshire cat; there never was a Cheshire moon."
"I suppose you will tell me next there never was a Cheshire cheese," says Mr. Browne severely. "Don't you see the connection? But never mind. Talking of cats brings us back to our mutton, and from thence to our cow. I do hope, Tommy, that for the future you will, at all events, try to believe in that faithful old animal who skipped so gaily up and down, and hither and thither, and in and out, and all about, that long-suffering old plum-tree."
"She never did it," says Tommy stamping with rage and now nearly in tears. "I've books—I've books, and 'tisn't in any of them."