“Well, go ahead, then, and explain.”
“Let us look at the thing calmly, candidly, and logically.”
“Certainly.”
“You have known—and so have I—circumstances where you have thought a child to exactly resemble its father, while another person would be equally strong in the belief that it hadn’t a trace of its father about it, but, on the contrary, was a picture of its mother.”
“Hundreds of them.”
“Again, we might go out some evening, and, while we were together, meet with a person of whom I would say, ‘Max, that young woman reminds me of your wife’s sister,’ and I would be surprised when you replied that they were no more alike than chalk and cheese. You know of instances of that kind, eh?”
“Loads of them.”
“And I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you to make any effort to explain this seemingly remarkable diversity of opinion upon a very simple and apparently plain subject, eh?”
“No, save that I have always let it go with the private opinion that the other fellow was not half as observant as I.”