Part 9 (1/2)
”Score me one!” he shouted, in high glee. ”Listen to Webster! 'Wit. 3.
Felicitous a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation of objects not usually connected'?”
”No! The a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation of objects is felicitous, and must be, because it was inst.i.tuted 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 Merritt a prize pig a form of wit?”
”Pretty poor wit I should call it!”
”Father is on my side!” shouted Ned. ”He says it's poor wit, which is only one way of saying that it is wit!”
”Can wit be poor?” asked Julia.
”Father says it can.”
”Then it isn't wit!” Madge protested.
”I should like to know why not. Old Mr. Tanner is a poor man, but he's a man for all that, and votes at elections for the highest bidder.
And your logic's poor, but I suppose you'd call it logic!”
”I have an idea!” cried Madge. ”I'm going to make my fortune out of you! I'm going to make a pair of excruciatingly funny pictures of you!
The first shall be called _The Student and Logic_, and the second shall be called _Logic and the Student!_ In the first the student shall be patting Logic on the head, and in the second,--oh, it's an inspiration!”
And forthwith Madge seized a large sheet of paper and began work.
”I'm not sure that this won't be the beginning of a series,” she declared. ”When it's finished I shall send it to a funny paper and get fifty dollars for it,--and when I have got fifty dollars for it, Father will send me to Paris; won't you, Daddy, dear?”
”What's that? What's that?” asked Mr. Burtwell.
”When I get fifty dollars,--_or more!_--for my Student, you will send me to Europe!”
”Oh, yes! And when you're Queen of England I shall be presented at Court! Listen to what the paper says: 'The Honourable Jacob Luddington and family have just returned from an extensive foreign tour. The two Miss Luddingtons were presented at the Court of St. James, where their exceptional beauty and elegance are said to have made a marked impression.' Good for the Honourable Jacob! His father was my father's ch.o.r.e-man, and here are his daughters hobn.o.bbing with crowned heads!”
From which digression it is fair to conclude that Mr. Burtwell did not attach any great importance to his daughter's question or to his own answer. But Madge put away the promise in the safest recesses of her memory as carefully as she had tucked the letter to her ”dear pickpocket” inside the red morocco pocket-book. It seemed as if the one were likely to be called for about as soon as the other,--”which means never at all!” she said to herself, with a profound sigh.