"'I THOUGHT MY FATHER A MEAN-SPIRITED ASSASSIN'"
"It would have expanded your chest if you had, Mr. Pedagog," observed the Idiot, quietly.
"So it would, but I never found myself short-winded, sir," retorted the School-master, with some acerbity.
"That is evident; but go on," said the Idiot. "You never passed a childish youth nor a youthful childhood, and therefore what?"
"Therefore, in my present condition, I am normally contented. I have no youthful follies to look back upon, no indiscretions to regret; I never knowingly told a lie, and—"
"All of which proves that you never were young," put in the Idiot; "and you will excuse me if I say it, but my father is the model for me rather than so exalted a personage as yourself. He is still young, though turned seventy, and I don't believe on his own account there ever was a boy who played hookey more, who prevaricated oftener, who purloined others' fruits with greater frequency than he. He was guilty of every crime in the calendar of youth; and if there is one thing that delights him more than another, it is to sit on a winter's night[Pg 119] before the crackling log and tell us yarns about his youthful follies and his boyhood indiscretions."
"But is he normally a happy man?" queried the School-master.
"No."
"Ah!"
"No. He's an abnormally happy man, because he's got his follies and indiscretions to look back upon and not forward to."