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.

F.--You would fail; folly is not easily achieved.

D.--True; man is overworked.

F.--Let him take a pill.

D.--If he like. I would not.

F.--You are too frank: take a fool's advice.

D.--Thank thee for the nastier prescription.

FOOL.--I have a friend who--

DOCTOR.--Stands in great need of my a.s.sistance. Absence of excitement, gentle restraint, a hard bed, simple diet--that will straighten him out.

F.--I'll give thee sixpence to let me touch the hem of thy garment!

D.--What of your friend?

F.--He is a gentleman.

D.--Then he is dead!

F.--Just so: he is "straightened out"--he took your prescription.

D.--All but the "simple diet."

F.--He is himself the diet.

D.--How simple!

FOOL.--Believe you a man retains his intellect after decapitation?

DOCTOR.--It is possible that he acquires it?

F.--Much good it does him.

D.--Why not--as compensation? He is at some disadvantage in other respects.

F.--For example?