Fools build houses, but wise men live in them. Exactly so; we are the architects of this generation. The wise man depends on us for his roof and lodging; and without us he would be homeless. We have built "Snookson's Folly" and "Babel Mansions"—half of London, in fact. The jerry-builders have done the rest.
A fool and his money are soon parted. A compliment to our open-handed and indiscriminate generosity. It is we who swell the subscription list for the last new gold mine or building society; who subsidise insolvent South American Republics; who support the mendicant tramp and the deserving blackmailer.
There is no fool like an old fool. That is, the quality of folly improves with keeping, like that of wine. The seniors of our class are thoroughly reliable old fools, and Past Grand Masters in the art of ineptitude. We, fools as we are, know how to pay the proper respect that is due to senility and second-childishness.
A fool at forty is a fool indeed. This is a corollary of the preceding aphorism, for it is only at the age of two-score that we attain to years of full indiscretion. We develop later than the rest of humanity; we undergo a severe probation before our claim to the title of complete nincompoop is recognised. Before forty there is yet a chance that the budding ninny may desert, and degenerate into a prig, a Philistine, or a physician. After that age he is safe, and can be depended on for unwisdom, whereas your ordinary wiseacre cuts his back teeth and graduates in common-sense at twenty-one.
Lastly, Fools stand in slippery places—where wise men tumble down; but this needs no further illustration than that provided years ago by C. K., in Mr. Punch's pages.
Not for their "Ben."—Judging from some of the evidence at the recent trial of Tillett v. "The Morning" (Limited), it probably occurred to the unemployed dockers that they might have been well employed in "docking" B. T.'s salary.
