Part 24 (1/2)

PH.--Certainly not.

F.--Why not?

PH.--I do not know.

F.--Excellent philosopher!

FOOL.--I have attentively considered your teachings. They may be full of wisdom; they are certainly out of taste.

PHILOSOPHER.--Whose taste?

F.--Why, that of people of culture.

PH.--Do any of these people chance to have a taste for intoxication, tobacco, hard hats, false hair, the nude ballet, and over-feeding?

F.--Possibly; but in intellectual matters you must confess their taste is correct.

PH.--Why must I?

F.--They say so themselves.

PHILOSOPHER.--I have been thinking why a dolt is called a donkey.

FOOL.--I had thought philosophy concerned itself with a less personal cla.s.s of questions; but why is it?

PH.--The essential quality of a dolt is stupidity.

F.--Mine ears are drunken!

PH.--The essential quality of an a.s.s is asininity.

F.--Divine philosophy!

PH.--As commonly employed, ”stupidity” and ”asininity” are convertible terms.

F.--That I, unworthy, should have lived to see this day!

II.

FOOL.--If _I_ were a doctor--

DOCTOR.--I should endeavour to be a fool.