"So thought M. T. Pate," said Toney.
"What would be the effect of a moderate blow from the ponderous fist of one of the aforesaid barons on the head of little Love?" inquired Tom.
"Immediate work for the undertaker," answered the Professor.
"Or suppose," said Tom, "that Dove was spanked by Richard, as was the little boy by his mother?"
"He would be crushed like a pepper-corn pounded by a pestle in a mortar," remarked the Professor.
"And," said Seddon, "the immense load of iron and steel carried by one of the knights at the tournament of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where three combatants were killed, one smothered in his armor, and thirty wounded, if put upon Bliss——"
"Would cause the dainty creature to think of Pelion piled upon Ossa," observed the Professor.
"But," said Toney, "Pate was well acquainted with the wonder-working powers of the imagination, and knew that with the aid of this faculty he could easily induce young maidens, who were diligent students of romance, to believe that the Noble Nonentity, the Dainty Adorer, and the Winsome Wooer, mounted on ponies, and flourishing long poles, were valorous knights, armed for the performance of doughty deeds; just as the unsophisticated birds are made to imagine that the effigies placed by a farmer around his cornfield are the dangerous and destructive bipeds in whose images they have been cunningly fashioned."
"You now perceive, Mr. Seddon," said the Professor, "in what various aspects the same subject will be contemplated by different minds. Mr. Pate is a man of an original and sublime genius, and entertains ideas which would never enter into either your head or mine."
"But," said Tom, "what did he do with his grand idea?"