in the least. I'm only witty."

"Witty!"

"Yes,--I've heard wit defined as the unexpected."

"The dictionary doesn't define it so, and good manners don't define
impudence as wit."

"We're not discussing impudence, we're discussing wit. And I know
positively that wit is defined as the unexpected."

"Let's have your authority," said Mr. Burtwell, who had not heard the
first part of the discussion.

"Let us see what the dictionary says," suggested Julia, who was the
scholar of the family.

"Very well; and what will you bet that I'm not right?"

"We don't bet in this family," said Mr. Burtwell, with decision.

"Oh, well, that's only a form of speech. What will you do for me,
Madge, if I'm right?"

"I'll put you into an allegorical sketch."

"Good! I always wondered that you didn't make use of such good
material in the artful line!"

The wire dictionary-stand, containing the portly form of Webster
Unabridged, was instantly brought up to the light, and there was half
a minute's silence while Ned turned the leaves.

"Score me one!" he shouted, in high glee. "Listen to Webster! 'Wit. 3.
Felicitous association of objects not usually connected, so as to
produce a pleasant surprise.' Quite at your service, my artful
relative, whenever you would like a sitting!"

"I protest! You haven't won!"

"Haven't won, indeed! I leave it to the gentlemen of the jury. Is not
the name of Prize Pig for Miss Eleanor Merritt a 'felicitous
association of objects not usually connected'?"

"No! The association is infelicitous, and consequently it does not
produce a 'pleasant surprise.'"

The family listened with the amused tolerance with which they usually
left such discussions to the two chief wranglers.

"I maintain," insisted Ned, "that the association of objects is
felicitous, and must be, because it was instituted by Miss Eleanor
Merritt herself. She won the prize, and she said she was a pig."

"But it doesn't produce a pleasant surprise," Madge objected.

"I beg your pardon! It _has_ produced a pleasant surprise, as I can
testify, for I have experienced it myself. What is your verdict,
Mother?"

"My verdict is, that it's a pity, as I always thought it was, that you
are not to be a lawyer, and that Madge can't do better than practise
her drawing by making the allegorical sketch."

That Mrs. Burtwell should be on Ned's side was a foregone conclusion,
and Madge appealed to her father.

"Father, is calling Eleanor Merr