as not one rogue on the average
among a dozen men. I don't see how that would interfere with my
proposition. If I say that among a dozen men you ought to find one that
weighs over a hundred and fifty pounds, and you tell me that there were
twelve men in your club, and one of 'em had red hair, I don't see that
you have materially damaged my statement.

--I thought it best to let the old Master have his easy victory, which
was more apparent than real, very evidently, and he went on.

--When the Lord sends out a batch of human beings, say a hundred--Did you
ever read my book, the new edition of it, I mean?

It is rather awkward to answer such a question in the negative, but I
said, with the best grace I could, "No, not the last edition."

--Well, I must give you a copy of it. My book and I are pretty much the
same thing. Sometimes I steal from my book in my talk without mentioning
it, and then I say to myself, "Oh, that won't do; everybody has read my
book and knows it by heart." And then the other I says,--you know there
are two of us, right and left, like a pair of shoes,--the other I says,
"You're a--something or other--fool. They have n't read your confounded
old book; besides, if they have, they have forgotten all about it."
Another time, I say, thinking I will be very honest, "I have said
something about that in my book"; and then the other I says, "What a
Balaam's quadruped you are to tell 'em it's in your book; they don't care
whether it is or not, if it's anything worth saying; and if it isn't
worth saying, what are you braying for?" That is a rather sensible
fellow, that other chap we talk with, but an impudent whelp. I never got
such abuse from any blackguard in my life as I have from that No. 2 of
me, the one that answers the other's questions and makes the comments,
and does what in demotic phrase is called the "sarsing."

--I laughed at that. I have just such a fellow always with me, as wise
as Solomon, if I would only heed him; but as insolent as Shimei, cursing,
and throwing stones and dirt, and behaving as if he had the traditions of
the "ape-like human being" born with him rather than civilized instincts.
One does not have to be a king to know what it is to keep a king's
jester.

--I mentioned my book,--the Master said, because I have something in it
on the subject we were talking about. I should like to read you a
passage here and there out of it, where I have expressed myself a little
mo