"What is this that beats the world, Mr Clinkum?" asked the Dominie, with the most cool and provoking indifference.
"This story about the apparition," quoth the smith.
"What story?" said the Dominie.
Now really this perversity was hardly to be endured, even in a learned Dominie, who, with all his cold indifference of feeling, was sitting toasting himself at a good smithy fire. The smith felt this, (for he was a man of acute feeling,) and therefore he spit upon his hand and fell a-clinking and pelting at the stithy with both spirit and resignation, saying within himself, "These dominie bodies just beat the world!"
"What story?" reiterated the Dominie. "For my part, I related no story, nor have ever given assent to a belief in such a story that any man has heard. Nevertheless, from the results of ratiocination, conclusions may be formed, though not algebraically, yet corporately, by constituting a quantity, which shall be equivalent to the difference, subtracting the less from the greater, and striking a balance in order to get rid of any ambiguity or paradox."
At the long adverb, nevertheless, the smith gave over blowing, and pricked up his ears; but the definition went beyond his comprehension.
"Ye ken, that just beats the whole world for deepness," said the smith; and again began blowing the bellows.
"You know, Mr Clinkum," continued the Dominie, "that a proposition is an assertion of some distinct truth, which only becomes manifest by demonstration. A corollary is an obvious, or easily inferred consequence of a proposition; while an hypothesis is a sup-position or concession made, during the process of demonstration. Now, do you take me along with you? Because, if you do not, it is needless to proceed."
"Yes, yes, I understand you middling weel; but I wad like better to hear what other folks say about it than you."
"And why so? Wherefore would you rather hear another man's demonstration than mine?" said the Dominie, sternly.