e." "Blockhead!" exclaims the irate king, "could a millstone be
hidden in a man's hand?" Then addressing the learned man, "Take him
away," he says, "and _teach_ him."

Lastly, we have a somewhat different specimen of the silly son in the
doctor's apprentice, whose attempt to imitate his master was so
ludicrously unsuccessful. He used to accompany his master on his visits
to patients, and one day the doctor said to a sick man, to whom he had
been called, "I know what is the matter with you, and it is useless to
deny it;--you have been eating beans." On their way home, the
apprentice, admiring his master's sagacity, begged to be informed how he
knew that the patient had been eating beans. "Boy," said the doctor,
loftily, "I drew an inference." "An inference!" echoed this youth of
inquiring mind; "and what is an inference?" Quoth the doctor, "Listen:
when we came to the door, I observed the shells of beans lying about,
and I drew the inference that the family had had beans for dinner."
Another day it chanced that the doctor did not take his apprentice with
him when he went his rounds, and in his absence a message came for him
to visit a person who had been taken suddenly ill. "Here," thought the
apprentice, "is a chance for my putting master's last lesson into
practice;" so off he went to the sick man, and assuming as "knowing" an
air as he could, he felt his pulse, and then said to him severely,
"Don't deny it; I see by your pulse that you have been eating a horse. I
shall send you some medicine." When the doctor returned home he inquired
of his hopeful pupil, whether any person had called for him, upon which
the wittol proudly told him of his own exploit. "Eaten a horse!"
exclaimed the man of physic. "In the name of all that's wonderful, what
induced you to say such a thing?" Quoth the youth, simpering, "Why, sir,
I did as you did the other day, when we visited the old farmer--I drew
an inference." "You drew an inference, did you? And how did you draw the
inference that the man had eaten a horse?" "Why, very readily, sir; for
as I entered the house I saw a saddle hanging on the wall."[17]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Abridged from the story of "Silly Matt" in Sir George W. Dasent's
_Tales from the Fjeld_.

[2] Professor Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, p. 302. This actual
throwing of eyes occurs in the folk-tales of Europe generally.

[3] In _Le Cabinet des Fees, 1788_ (tome xxxviii., p. 337 ff.).--
There can be no such name