He can grasp but one idea at a time, and this one idea does not lead to another in his mind. There it remains like the buried talent.
Master Whirligig is a light-headed boy. It requires very little to entertain him. The falling of a book, a cough, a sneeze, an organ in the street, will send him into fits of hilarity behind his pocket-handkerchief, and when the school breaks up for the Midsummer holidays, he will be able to tell you the exact number of flies that passed through the class-room during the term.
He is never still for a moment. Always on the look-out for fresh events, he is the nearest approach to perpetual motion yet discovered.
The cracks in this boy's cranium may be explained physiologically. Matter subjected to constant motion gets heated, as we all know. Now young Whirligig's skull is but scantily furnished with brain matter, and it would be wise of him to keep it still. This he seems to be incapable of doing. He is for ever jerking and shaking it, churning the contents in fact. The churn heated, hot vapors are generated; they expand, the pressure is too great, they must escape—they force an outlet—hence the cracks.—Q.E.D.
If you want to see the good average English schoolboy in all his glory, make him write out a rule of French grammar, and tell him to illustrate it with an example.
Nine times out of ten his example will illustrate the contrary to the rule.
He has heard over and over again, for instance, that a French past participle, conjugated with the auxiliary avoir, sometimes agrees with its direct object and sometimes does not. This he thinks very hard upon him. Funny temper these past participles have! You never know when they will agree. It is not fair, now, is it? By consulting his grammar, he would be enabled to satisfy his master. But he does not do that. He trusts to his luck, and has a shot. After all, his chance is 50 per cent. He generally fails to hit.
Is he not a most unlucky little creature?