"But if science shows you what is to come," said the School-Master, "it must show your fate with perfect accuracy, or it ceases to be science, in which event your entertaining notions as to reform and so on are entirely fallacious."
"Not at all," said the Idiot. "We are approaching the time when science, which is much more liberal than any other branch of knowledge, will sacrifice even truth itself for the good of mankind."
"You ought to start a paradox company," suggested the Doctor.
"Either that or make himself the nucleus of an insane asylum," observed the School-Master, viciously. "I never knew a man with such maniacal views as those we have heard this morning."
"There is a great deal, Mr. Pedagog, that you have never known," returned the Idiot. "Stick by me, and you'll die with a mind richly stored."
Whereat the School-Master left the table with such manifest impatience that Mr. Whitechoker was sorry he had started the conversation.
The genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed and the Idiot withdrew to the latter's room, where the former observed:
"What are you driving at, anyhow? Where did you get those crazy ideas?"
"I ate a Welsh-rarebit last night, and dreamed 'em," returned the Idiot.
"I thought as much," said his companion. "What deuced fine things dreams are, anyhow!"