“No,” replied Trimbush. “So far from that being the case, there never were better working hounds on earth.”
“Then how do you account for it?” inquired I.
“There are many things,” returned Trimbush, with the air of a philosopher, “as clear to our vision as the sunshine at noon, and yet their causes are hid in impenetrable darkness. I cannot,” continued he, “tell why Graceful and Valentine should inherit the eccentricities of their parents, but only see that they do so.”
“Are these the only two instances coming under your observation?” I asked.
“By no means,” replied my companion. “I could recite a dozen others of a similar nature, but I fear they might prove wearisome. You see that badger-pied hound amusing himself by snapping at the flies buzzing about him? Well, he is a nephew of mine, and makes it a rule, as his father did, to carry home whatever part of the varmint that falls to his share, and never eats it, unless there is a great chance of its being dragged away from him, till he gets to the kennel door.”
“Perhaps he wishes to show everybody on the road that he had a hand in the breaking up,” said I.
“I think vanity has something to do with it,” replied my friend; “but if so, he inherits the pride from his sire, just as those peculiarities I have named are inborn in others.”
“I suppose, if these habits descend from parent to child,” I observed, “that vices are also inheritable.”
“Decidedly,” replied Trimbush, beginning to evince symptoms of drowsiness. “Rioting, skirting, babbling, and all such-like faults, are inheritable, and as much so as the defective points in symmetry.”
“It appears to me somewhat harsh, then,” rejoined I, “to punish us for them.”