Violently protesting, but all in vain, the father was made to repeat not only “the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell” but “the misery of that estate” as well, which he did only after some considerable prompting by the delighted boy and his mother.
“So you’re going through with it, are you, laddie?” said his father, when he had emerged, somewhat chastened in spirit, from his ordeal.
“Right through to the very end, Daddy, same as Mother did.”
“And me too. Don’t forget your father’s early triumphs. And a lot of good it has done me, eh, Mother?”
“You never know, dear, what good it has done you.”
“Or what harm. Luckily I never tried to understand it, like this young philosopher.”
“What’s a philofisser, Mother?”
“A person who is very fond of knowing things, dear.”
“All right, I’m one, Mother. And I’m going to know everything in the Cakism——”
“Catechism, dear.”