great-great-grandfathers, sixteen great-great-great-grandfathers,
thirty-two fathers raised to the fourth power of great-grandness, and
so on, increasing in number as you go further back, until it is hardly
possible for any one to throw a brick into the pages of history without
hitting somebody who is more or less responsible for his existence. I
dare say there is a streak of Julius Caesar in me, and I haven't a doubt
that if our friend Mr. Pedagog here were to take the trouble to
investigate, he would find that Caesar and Cassius and Brutus could be
numbered among his early progenitors--and now that I think of it,
I must say that in my estimation he is an unusually amiable man,
considering how diverse the nature of these men were. Think of it for
a minute. Here a man unites in himself Caesar and Cassius and Brutus,
two of whom killed the third, and then, having quarrelled together,
went out upon a battle-field and slaughtered themselves, after making
extemporaneous remarks, for which this miserable world gives Shakespeare
all the credit. It's worse than the case of a friend of mine, one of
whose grandfathers was French and the other German."

"How did it affect him?" asked Mr. Whitechoker.

"It made him distrust himself," said the Idiot, with a smile, "and for
that reason he never could get on in the world. When his Teutonic nature
suggested that he do something, his Gallic blood would rise up and spoil
everything, and _vice versa_. He was eternally quarrelling with himself.
He was a victim to internal disorder of the worst sort."

"And what, pray, finally became of him?" asked the Clergyman.

"He shot himself in a duel," returned the Idiot, with a wink at the
genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed. "It was very sad."

"I've known sadder things," said Mr. Pedagog, wearily. "Your elaborate
jokes, for instance. They are enough to make strong men weep."

"You flatter me, Mr. Pedagog," said the Idiot. "I have never in all my
experience as a cracker of jests made a man laugh until he cried, but I
hope to some day. But, really, do you know I think Columbus is an
immensely overrated man. If you come down to it, what did he do? He went
out to sea in a ship and sailed for three months, and when he least
expected it ran slam-bang up against the Western Hemisphere. It was like
shooting at a barn door with a Gatling gun. He was bound to hit it sooner
or later."

"You don't give him any credit for tenacity of purpose