"The facts seem to prove this; but you will say that it is so much the worse for the facts," replied the captain, laughing at the earnestness of the non-nautical gentlemen; and even the ladies understood the matter well enough to be interested in the dispute.
"The affirmative side of the question must prove its position," suggested the doctor.
"Which the affirmative will be very happy to do," replied the commander very cheerfully. "If the bottom of the canal were a dead level, paved like Broadway, and the depth of the canal were just twenty-six feet in every place, with a perpendicular wall on each side, your theory would be entirely correct, and the affirmative would have nothing more to say. But the bottom is not paved, and there are no walls at the sides to secure a uniform depth."
"Then the canal is not twenty-six feet deep, as the affirmative has laid down the law," added Uncle Moses.
"That looks like a lawyer's quibble," replied the captain with a hearty laugh. "You have opened the road for the retreat of the negative."
"The facts set forth by the speakers in our conference fail to be facts," persisted the legal gentleman.
"The fact was given as a general truth that the depth of the canal is twenty-six feet; but I think that no person as reasonable as Squire Scarburn of Von Blonk Park would insist that it should be absolutely of fully that depth in every part in order to comply with the general truth of the statement. The courts don't rule in that way. I read lately of a life insurance company which refused to pay a policy on the plea that the holder had been a drunkard; but the court ruled that the use of intoxicating liquors, or even an occasional over-indulgence, did not constitute a drunkard."
"A wise ruling," added the squire.
"We call a person a good man; but even the affirmative does not insist that he shall be absolutely without sin, stain, or fault in order to entitle him to this designation."
"There would not be a single good man in that case," laughed the doctor. "We admit the general truth that the canal is twenty-six feet deep."