Chapter 3

There was a conspiracy in hand to embarrass the Idiot. The School-master
and the Bibliomaniac had combined forces to give him a taste of his own
medicine. The time had not yet arrived which showed the Idiot at a
disadvantage; and the two boarders, the one proud of his learning, and
the other not wholly unconscious of a bookish life, were distinctly
tired of the triumphant manner in which the Idiot always left the
breakfast-table to their invariable discomfiture.

It was the School-master's suggestion to put their tormentor into the
pit he had heretofore digged for them. The worthy instructor of youth
had of late come to see that while he was still a prime favorite with
his landlady, he had, nevertheless, suffered somewhat in her estimation
because of the apparent ease with which the Idiot had got the better of
him on all points. It was necessary, he thought, to rehabilitate
himself, and a deep-laid plot, to which the Bibliomaniac readily lent
ear, was the result of his reflections. They twain were to indulge in a
discussion of the great story of _Robert Elsmere_, which both were
confident the Idiot had not read, and concerning which they felt assured
he could not have an intelligent opinion if he had read it.

So it happened upon this bright Sunday morning that as the boarders sat
them down to partake of the usual "restful breakfast," as the Idiot
termed it, the Bibliomaniac observed:

"I have just finished reading _Robert Elsmere_."

"Have you, indeed?" returned the School-master, with apparent interest.
"I trust you profited by it?"

"On the contrary," observed the Bibliomaniac. "My views are much
unsettled by it."

"I prefer the breast of the chicken, Mrs. Smithers," observed the Idiot,
sending his plate back to the presiding genius of the table. "The neck
of a chicken is graceful, but not too full of sustenance."

"He fights shy," whispered the Bibliomaniac, gleefully.

"Never mind," returned the School-master, confidently; "we'll land him
yet." Then he added, aloud: "Unsettled by it? I fail to see how any man
with beliefs that are at all the result of mature convictions can be
unsettled by the story of _Elsmere_. For my part I believe, and I have
always said--"

"I never could understand why the neck of a chicken should be allowed on
a respectable table anyhow," continued the Idiot, ignoring the
controversy in which his neighbors were engaged, "unless for the purpose
of showing that the deceased fowl met with an accidental rather than a
natural death."

"In what way does the neck demonstrate that point?" queried the