Chapter 3

"I wish I were beginning life all over again," said the Idiot one spring
morning, as he took his accustomed place at Mrs. Pedagog's table.

"I wish you were," said Mr. Pedagog from behind his newspaper. "Then your
parents would have you shut up in a nursery, and it is even conceivable
that you would be receiving those disciplinary attentions with a slipper
that you seem to me so frequently to deserve, were you at this present
moment in the nursery stage of your development."

"My!" ejaculated the Idiot. "What a wonder you are, Mr. Pedagog! It is a
good thing you are not a justice in a criminal court."

"And what, may I venture to ask," said Mr. Pedagog, glancing at the Idiot
over his spectacles--"what has given rise to that extraordinary remark,
the connection of which with anything that has been said or done this
morning is distinctly not apparent?"

"I only meant that a man who was so given over to long sentences as you
are would probably make too severe a judge in a criminal court," replied
the Idiot, meekly. "Do you make use of the same phraseology in the
class-room that you dazzle us with, I should like to know?"

"And why not, pray?" said Mr. Pedagog.

"No special reason," said the Idiot; "only it does seem to me that an
instructor of youth ought to be more careful in his choice of adverbs
than you appear to be. Of course Doctor Bolus here is under no obligation
to speak more grammatically or correctly than he does. People call him in
to prescribe, not to indulge in rhetorical periods, and he can write his
prescriptions in a sort of intuitive Latin and nobody be the wiser, but
you, who are said to be sowing the seeds of knowledge in the brain of
youth, should be more careful."

"Hear the grammarian talk!" returned Mr. Pedagog. "Listen to this
embryonic Samuel Johnson the Second. What have I said that so offends the
linguistic taste of Lindley Murray, Jun.?"

"Nothing," returned the Idiot. "I cannot say that you have said anything.
I never heard you say anything in my life; but while you can no doubt
find good authority for making use of the words 'distinctly not
apparent,' you ought not to throw such phrases around carelessly. The
thing which is distinct is apparent, therefore to say 'distinctly not
apparent' to a mind that is not given to analysis sounds strange. You
might as well say of a beautiful girl that she is plainly pretty, meaning
of course that she is evidently pretty; but those who are unacquainted
with the idiomatic peculiarities of your speech might ask you if you
meant that she was pretty in a plain sort of way.