would
produce an evil effect on his mind. I am willing to admit, since I, too,
have had some training in scientific reading, that writers on those
subjects are not easily understood even by the mature intelligence."

"Then why, exactly, do you wish me to prohibit the child from coming to
Challis Court?"

"Possibly you have not realised that the child is now five years old?"
said Crashaw with an air of conferring illumination.

"Indeed! Yes. An age of some discretion, no doubt," returned Challis.

"An age at which the State requires that he should receive the elements
of education," continued Crashaw.

"Eh?" said Challis.

"Time he went to school," explained Mr. Forman. "I've been after him,
you know. I'm the attendance officer for this district."

Challis for once committed a breach of good manners. The import of the
thing suddenly appealed to his sense of humour: he began to chuckle and
then he laughed out a great, hearty laugh, such as had not been stirred
in him for twenty years.

"Oh! forgive me, forgive me," he said, when he had recovered his
self-control. "But you don't know; you can't conceive the utter,
childish absurdity of setting that child to recite the multiplication
table with village infants of his own age. Oh! believe me, if you could
only guess, you would laugh with me. It's so funny, so inimitably
funny."

"I fail to see, Mr. Challis," said Crashaw, "that there is anything in
any way absurd or--or unusual in the proposition."

"Five is the age fixed by the State," said Mr. Forman. He had relaxed
into a broad smile in sympathy with Challis's laugh, but he had now
relapsed into a fair imitation of Crashaw's intense seriousness.

"Oh! How can I explain?" said Challis. "Let me take an instance. You
propose to teach him, among other things, the elements of arithmetic?"

"It is a part of the curriculum," replied Mr. Forman.

"I have only had one conversation with this child," went on Challis--and
at the mention of that conversation his brows drew together and he
became very grave again; "but in the course of that conversation this
child had occasion to refer, by way of illustration, to some abstruse
theorem of the differential calculus. He did it, you will understand, by
way of making his meaning clear--though the illustration was utterly
beyond me: that reference represented an act of intellectual
condescension."

"God bless me, you don't say so?" said Mr. Forman.

"I cannot see," said Cr