, Mr. Poet? It's very
evident, Mr. Pedagog, that you're not acquainted with children. Now, my
small cousin can make the same appeal over and over again in a hundred
and fifty different ways. You may have the courage to say no a hundred
and forty-nine times, but I have yet to meet the man who could make his
no good with a boy of real persistent spirit. I can't do it. I've
tried, but I've had to give in sooner or later."

"Same way with me, multiplied by seven," said the Poet, with difficulty
repressing a yawn. "I tried the no business on the morning of the third
day, and gave it up as a hopeless case before the clock struck twelve."

"I'd teach 'em," said Mr. Pedagog.

"You'd have to learn 'em first," retorted the Idiot. "You can't do
anything with children unless you understand them. You've got to
remember several things when you have small boys to deal with. In the
first place, they are a great deal more alert than you are. They are a
great deal more energetic; they know what they want, and in getting it
they haven't any dignity to restrain them, wherein they have a distinct
advantage over you. Worst of all, down in your secret heart you want to
laugh, even when they most affront you."

"I don't," said Mr. Pedagog, shortly.

"And why? Because you don't know them, cannot sympathize with them, and
look upon them as evils to be tolerated rather than little minds to be
cultivated. Hard a time as I have had as an Alp, I'd feel as if a great
hole had been punched in my life if anything should deprive me of my
cousin Sammie. He knows it and I know it, and that is why we are chums,"
said the Idiot. "What I like about Sammie is that he believes in me," he
added, a little wistfully. "I wouldn't mind doing that myself--if I
could."

"You might think differently if you suffered from seven Sammies the way
the Poet does," said the Bibliomaniac.

"There couldn't be seven Sammies," said the Idiot. "Sammie is unique--to
me. But I am not at all narrow in this matter. I can very well imagine
how Sammie could be very disagreeable to some people. I shouldn't care
much for Alp, I suppose, if when night came on Sammie didn't climb up on
my lap and tell me he thought I was the greatest man that ever lived
next to his mother and father. That's the thing, Mr. Pedagog, that makes
Alp tolerable--it's the sugar sauce to the batter pudding. There's a
good deal of plain batter in the pudding, but with the sauce generously
mixed in you don't