Chapter 2 - Page 2

married Mr. Pedagog, do we lose
all of our rights in Mr. Pedagog? Before the happy event that reduced our
number from ten to nine--"

"We are still ten, are we not?" asked Mr. Whitechoker, counting the
guests.

"Not if Mr. Pedagog and the late Mrs. Smithers have become one," said the
Idiot. "But, as I was saying, before the happy event that reduced our
number from ten to nine we were permitted to address our friend Pedagog
in any terms we saw fit, and whenever he became sufficiently interested
to indulge in repartee we were privileged to return it. Have we
relinquished that privilege? I don't remember to have done so."

"It's a question worthy of your giant intellect," said Mr. Pedagog,
scornfully. "For myself, I do not at all object to anything you may
choose to say to me or of me. Your assaults are to me as water is to a
duck's back."

"I am sorry," said the Idiot. "I hate family disagreements, and here we
have Mrs. Pedagog taking one side and Mr. Pedagog the other. But whatever
decision may ultimately be reached, of one thing Mrs. Pedagog must be
assured. I on principle side against Mr. Pedagog, and if it be the wish
of my good landlady that I shall refrain from playing intellectual
battledore and shuttlecock with her husband, whom we all revere, I
certainly shall refrain. Hereafter if I indulge in anything that in any
sense resembles repartee with our landlord, I wish it distinctly
understood that an apology goes with it."

"That's all right, my boy," said the School-Master. "You mean well. You
are a little new, that's all, and we all understand you."

"I don't understand him," growled the Doctor, still smarting under the
recollection of former breakfast-table discomfitures. "I wish we could
get him translated."

"If you prescribed for me once or twice I think it likely I should be
translated in short order," retorted the Idiot. "I wonder how I'd go
translated into French?"

"You couldn't be expressed in French," put in the Lawyer. "It would take
some barbarian tongue to do you justice."

"Very well," said the Idiot. "Proceed. Do me justice."

"I can't begin to," said Mr. Brief, angrily.

"That's what I thought," said the Idiot. "That's the reason why you
always do me such great injustice. You lawyers always have to be doing
something, even if it is only holding down a chair so that it won't blow
out of your office window. If you haven't any justice to mete out, you
take another tack and dispense injustice with lavish hand. However, I'll
forgive you if you'll tell