r for thirty
years; and from these premises you deduce the illogical and irrational
conclusion that therefore your son must be a farmer."

"Young man, you may think yourself very knowing 'cause you have been at
the 'Varsity, and swept away a headful of book-learning."

"Stop," quoth Kenelm. "You grant that a university is learned."

"Well, I suppose so."

"But how could it be learned if those who quitted it brought the
learning away? We leave it all behind us in the care of the tutors. But
I know what you were going to say,--that it is not because I had read
more books than you have that I was to give myself airs and pretend to
have more knowledge of life than a man of your years and experience.
Agreed, as a general rule. But does not every doctor, however wise and
skilful, prefer taking another doctor's opinion about himself, even
though that other doctor has just started in practice? And seeing that
doctors, taking them as a body, are monstrous clever fellows, is not
the example they set us worth following? Does it not prove that no man,
however wise, is a good judge of his own case? Now, your son's case
is really your case: you see it through the medium of your likings and
dislikings; and insist upon forcing a square peg into a round hole,
because in a round hole you, being a round peg, feel tight and
comfortable. Now I call that irrational."

"I don't see why my son has any right to fancy himself a square peg,"
said the farmer, doggedly, "when his father and his grandfather and his
great-grandfather have been round pegs; and it is agin' nature for
any creature not to take after its own kind. A dog is a pointer or
a sheep-dog according as its forebears were pointers or sheep-dogs.
There," cried the farmer, triumphantly, shaking the ashes out of his
pipe. "I think I have posed you, young master!"

"No; for you have taken it for granted that the breeds have not been
crossed. But suppose that a sheep-dog has married a pointer, are you
sure that his son will not be more of a pointer than a sheep-dog?"

Mr. Saunderson arrested himself in the task of refilling his pipe, and
scratched his head.

"You see," continued Kenelm, "that you have crossed the breed. You
married a tradesman's daughter, and I dare say her grandfather and
great-grandfather were tradesmen too. Now, most sons take after their
mothers, and therefore Mr. Saunderson junior takes after his kind on the
distaff side, and comes into the world a square