d."

"Then why doesn't every boy go to him when he can't get fair play?"

"Ah, why? That is just what I want you to do. He can do better than
give you fair play even: he can make you give other people fair play,
and delight in it."

"Tell me where he is."

"That is what I have to teach you: mere telling is not much use.
Telling is what makes people think they know when they do not, and
makes them foolish."

"What is his name?"

"I will not tell you that just yet; for then you would think you knew
him, when you knew next to nothing about him. Look here; look at this
book," he went on, pulling a copy of Boethius from his pocket; "look at
the name on the back of it: it is the name of the man that wrote the
book."

Davie spelled it out.

"Now you know all about the book, don't you?"

"No, sir; I don't know anything about it."

"Well then, my father's name is Robert Grant: you know now what a good
man he is!"

"No, I don't. I should like to see him though!"

"You would love him if you did! But you see now that knowing the name
of a person does not make you know the person."

"But you said, sir, that if you told me the name of that person, I
should fancy I knew all about him: I don't fancy I know all about your
father now you have told me his name!"

"You have me there!" answered Donal. "I did not say quite what I ought
to have said. I should have said that when we know a little about a
person, and are used to hearing his name, then we are ready to think we
know all about him. I heard a man the other day--a man who had never
spoken to your father--talk as if he knew all about him."

"I think I understand," said Davie.

To confess ignorance is to lose respect with the ignorant who would
appear to know. But there is a worse thing than to lose the respect
even of the wise--to deserve to lose it; and that he does who would
gain a respect that does not belong to him. But a confession of
ignorance is a ground of respect with a well-bred child, and even with
many ordinary boys will raise a man's influence: they recognize his
loyalty to the truth. Act-truth is infinitely more than fact-truth;
the love of the truth infinitely beyond the knowledge of it.

They went out together, and when they had gone the round of the place
outside, Davie would have taken him over the house; but Donal said they
would leave something for another time, and made him lie down for ten
minutes. This the boy thought a great h