me to ask
you; I suppose you have heard of Tully's Offices?

_Boy._ Tully's Offices! No, Sir.

_Doctor._ No matter. You can, I will venture to say, solve me the
following question. It is not very difficult, but it has puzzled some
abler casuists, I can tell you, though, than you or I; but if you will
lend me your attention for a few moments, I flatter myself I shall
make myself intelligible to you.

The boy began to stiffen at this exordium, but he fixed himself in an
attitude of anxious attention, and the doctor, after having taken two
pinches of snuff, proceeded:

"In the Island of Rhodes, there was once, formerly, a great scarcity
of provisions, a famine quite; and some merchants fitted out ten ships
to relieve the Rhodians; and one of the merchants got into port sooner
than the others; and he took advantage of this circumstance to sell
his goods at an exorbitant rate, finding himself in possession of the
market. The Rhodians did not know that the other ships laden with
provisions were to be in the next day; and they, of course, paid this
merchant whatsoever price he thought proper to demand. Now the
question is, in morality, whether did he act the part of an honest man
in this business by the Rhodians? Or should he not rather have
informed them of the nine ships which were expected to come with
provisions to the market the ensuing day?"

The boy was silent, and did not appear to comprehend the story or the
question in the least. In telling his story, the doctor of the
Sorbonne unluckily pronounced the words _ship_ and _ships_ in such a
manner, that the child all along mistook them for _sheep_ and
_sheeps_; and this mistake threw every thing into confusion. Besides
this, a number of terms were made use of which were quite new to the
boy. Getting into port--being in possession of the market--selling
goods at an exorbitant rate; together with the whole mystery of buying
and selling, were as new to him, and appeared to him as difficult to
be understood, as the most abstract metaphysics. He did not even know
what was meant by the ships being expected _in_ the next day; and
"_acting the part_ of an honest man," was to him an unusual mode of
expression. The young casuist made no hand of this case of conscience;
when at last he attempted an answer, he only exposed himself to the
contempt of the learned doctor. When he was desired to repeat the
story, he made a strange jumble about some people who wanted to get
some _