“And you know I know it’s there.”
“Yes, yes; but I just don’t think about that one in counting up. I see what you mean, of course.”
“And I see what you mean. You mean that your shawl is in the bottom one of the regular drawers—with knobs—that can be alluded to in general conversation. Now I think I can find it.”
He did. And in addition he amused himself by working out phrases about “when is a bottom drawer not a bottom drawer?” and “when is a top shelf not a top shelf?”
It is to these incidents—which I regard as isolated and negligible, and he regards as typical and significant—that he alludes on the occasions when he is unable to find a red book on the sitting-room table. In vain do I point out that when language is variable and fluid it is alive, and that there may be two opinions about the structural top and the functional top, whereas there can be but one as to the book being or not being on the table. He maintains a quiet cheerfulness, as of one who is conscious of being, if not invulnerable, at least well armed.
For a time he even tried to make believe that he was invulnerable as well—to set up the thesis that if the book was really on the table he could find it. But in this he suffered so many reverses that only strong natural pertinacity kept him from capitulation.
Is it necessary to recount instances? Every family can furnish them. As I allow myself to float off into a reminiscent dream I find my mind possessed by a continuous series of dissolving views in which Jonathan is always coming to me saying, “It isn’t there,” and I am always saying, “Please look again.”
Though everything in the house seems to be in a conspiracy against him, it is perhaps with the fishing-tackle that he has most constant difficulties.
“My dear, have you any idea where my rod is? No, don’t get up—I’ll look if you’ll just tell me where—”
“Probably in the corner behind the chest in the orchard room.”