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FOOL.—You say you detest foreigners. Why?
PHILOSOPHER.—Because I am human.
F.—But so are they.
PH.—Excellent fool! I thank thee for the better reason.
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PHILOSOPHER.—I have been thinking of the pocopo.
FOOL.—Is it open to the public?
PH.—The pocopo is a small animal of North America, chiefly remarkable for singularity of diet. It subsists solely upon a single article of food.
F.—What is that?
PH.—Other pocopos. Unable to obtain this, their natural sustenance, a great number of pocopos die annually of starvation. Their death leaves fewer mouths to feed, and by consequence their race is rapidly multiplying.
F.—From whom had you this?
PH.—A professor of political economy.
F.—I bend in reverence! What made you think of the pocopo?
PH.—Speaking of man.
F.—If you did not wish to think of the pocopo, and speaking of man would make you think of it, you would not speak of man, would you?
PH.—Certainly not.
F.—Why not?
PH.—I do not know.
F.—Excellent philosopher!
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FOOL.—I have attentively considered your teachings. They may be full of wisdom; they are certainly out of taste.
PHILOSOPHER.—Whose taste?
F.—Why, that of people of culture.
PH.—Do any of these people chance to have a taste for intoxication, tobacco, hard hats, false hair, the nude ballet, and over-feeding?
F.—Possibly; but in intellectual matters you must confess their taste is correct.
PH.—Why must I?
F.—They say so themselves.
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PHILOSOPHER.—I have been thinking why a dolt is called a donkey.
FOOL.—I had thought philosophy concerned itself with a less personal class of questions; but why is it?
PH.—The essential quality of a dolt is stupidity.
F.—Mine ears are drunken!
PH.—The essential quality of an ass is asininity.
F.—Divine philosophy!
PH.—As commonly employed, “stupidity” and “asininity” are convertible terms.
F.—That I, unworthy, should have lived to see this day!
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II.
FOOL.—If I were a doctor—
DOCTOR.—I should endeavour to be a fool.
F.—You would fail; folly is not easily achieved.
D.—True; man is overworked.
F.—Let him take a pill.
D.—If he like. I would not.
F.—You are too frank: take a fool’s advice.
D.—Thank thee for the nastier prescription.
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