agree on
anything in my hearing, except the Chink's corn muffins; and they looked
kind of mad at each other when they had to agree on them.

Take the age of this earth on which we make our living. They never got
within a couple of hundred million years of each other. Oswald was strong
for the earth's being exactly fifty-seven million years old. Trust him to
have it down fine! And the old man hung out for four hundred million.
They used to get all fussed up about this.

They quoted authorities. One scientist had figured close and found it was
fifty-six million years. And another, who seemed to be a headliner in the
world of science, said it was between twenty million and four hundred
million, with a probability of its being ninety-eight million. I kind of
liked that scientist. He seemed so human, like a woman in a bean-guessing
contest at the county fair. But still another scientist had horned in
with a guess of five hundred million years, which was at least easy to
remember.

Of course I never did much but listen, even when they argued this thing
that I knew all about; for back in Fredonia, New York, where I went to
Sunday-school, it was settled over fifty years ago. Our dear old pastor
told us the earth was exactly six thousand years old. But I let the poor
things talk on, not wanting to spoil their fun. When one of 'em said the
world was made at least fifty-seven million years ago I merely said it
didn't look anywhere near as old as that, and let it go.

We had some merry little meals for about a month. If it wasn't the age
of God's footstool it would be about what we are descended from, the
best bet in sight being that it's from fishes that had lungs and breathed
under water as easy as anything, which at least put dimmers on that old
monkey scandal in our ancestry. Or, after we moved outside on the porch,
which we had to do on account of Oswald smoking the very worst cigars he
was able to find in all the world, they would get gabby about all things
in the world being simply nothing, which is known to us scientists as
metaphysics.

Metaphysics is silly-simple--like one, two, three. It consists of subject
and object. I only think I'm knitting this here sock. There ain't any
sock here and there ain't any me. We're illusions. The sound of that
Chink washing dishes out in the kitchen is a mere sensation inside my
head. So's the check for eighty dollars I will have to hand him on the
first of the month--though the foo