ing? I'm sure to make a mess of it!"

Fancy a boy saying this to himself at cricket, while a ball is flying
beautifully towards him, an easy catch, even for a duffer. Do you
suppose he will catch it? Not he. He will stand where he is, and put
up his hands, and look another way. In fact, he won't do his best. And
why? Because all of us never expect him to catch it; and if he did, we
should probably call it a "fluke," and laugh at him all the more. Yes,
it's our fault in a certain measure that Billy is the awful "duffer" he
is.

Sometimes, as in the game of football we have referred to, he does make
up his mind to do his best; but even then the idea that "destiny" is
against him, and that everybody is expecting him to make a fool of
himself, as usual, is enough to make any fellow nervous and a duffer.

However, whatever excuses we may make for Billy, he was undoubtedly a
duffer. I have named one reason of his bad luck--want of thought--and
another was hurry. In fact, the two reasons become one, for it was
chiefly because Billy would never give himself time to think that he
made so many mistakes. All his thinking came after the thing was done.
As soon as the chemicals had blown up, for instance, it entered his head
he had mixed the wrong ingredients, and as soon as the ball was flying
to the wrong goal it occurred to him he had kicked it in a wrong
direction.

And this really brings me to the moral of my discourse. Don't despair,
if you are a duffer, for you may cure yourself of it, if you will only
_think_ and _take your time_. If we are not quick-witted, it does not
follow we have no wits, and if we only use them carefully, we shall be
no greater duffers than some of our sharp fellows.

The great philosopher Newton once appeared in the light of a great
duffer. He had a cat, and that cat had a kitten, and these two
creatures were continually worrying him by scratching at his study door
to be let either in or out. A brilliant idea occurred to the
philosopher--he would make holes in the bottom of his door through which
they might pass in or out at pleasure without troubling him to get up
and open the door every time. And thereupon he made a big hole for the
cat and a little hole for the kitten, as if both could not have used the
big hole!

Well, you say, one could fancy Billy Bungle doing a thing like that, but
what an extraordinary error for a philosopher to fall into! It was, but
the reason in both