peacefully assigned
no less than sixteen English counties. And when a Dane was called
somebody's son, it is a sign that he was the son of a somebody."

"By gosh! I never heard that before."

"If I thought you had I should not have said it."

"Now I have told you my name, what is yours?"

"A wise man asks questions and a fool answers them. Suppose for a moment
that I am not a fool."

Farmer Saunderson scratched his head, and looked more puzzled than
became the descendant of a Dane settled by King Alfred in the north of
England.

"Dash it," said he at last, "but I think you are Yorkshire too."

"Man, who is the most conceited of all animals, says that he alone has
the prerogative of thought, and condemns the other animals to the meaner
mechanical operation which he calls instinct. But as instincts are
unerring and thoughts generally go wrong, man has not much to boast of
according to his own definition. When you say you think, and take it
for granted, that I am Yorkshire, you err. I am not Yorkshire. Confining
yourself to instinct, can you divine when we shall sup? The cows you are
about to visit divine to a moment when they shall be fed."

Said the farmer, recovering his sense of superiority to the guest whom
he obliged with a supper, "In ten minutes." Then, after a pause, and
in a tone of deprecation, as if he feared he might be thought fine, he
continued, "We don't sup in the kitchen. My father did, and so did I
till I married; but my Bess, though she's as good a farmer's wife as
ever wore shoe-leather, was a tradesman's daughter, and had been brought
up different. You see she was not without a good bit of money: but even
if she had been, I should not have liked her folks to say I had lowered
her; so we sup in the parlour."

Quoth Kenelm, "The first consideration is to sup at all. Supper
conceded, every man is more likely to get on in life who would rather
sup in his parlour than his kitchen. Meanwhile, I see a pump; while you
go to the cows I will stay here and wash my hands of them."

"Hold! you seem a sharp fellow, and certainly no fool. I have a son,
a good smart chap, but stuck up; crows it over us all; thinks no small
beer of himself. You'd do me a service, and him too, if you'd let him
down a peg or two."

Kenelm, who was now hard at work at the pump-handle, only replied by a
gracious nod. But as he seldom lost an opportunity for reflection, he
said to himself, while he laved his face in the stream