"I have set my mind on Mr Escot," said the squire.

"I am much obliged to you," said Mr Cranium, "for dethroning me from
my paternal authority."

"Who fished you out of the water?" said Squire Headlong.

"What is that to the purpose?" said Mr Cranium. "The whole
process of the action was mechanical and necessary. The application of
the poker necessitated the ignition of the powder: the ignition
necessitated the explosion: the explosion necessitated my sudden
fright, which necessitated my sudden jump, which, from a necessity
equally powerful, was in a curvilinear ascent: the descent, being in a
corresponding curve, and commencing at a point perpendicular to the
extreme line of the edge of the tower, I was, by the necessity of
gravitation, attracted, first, through the ivy, and secondly through
the hazel, and thirdly through the ash, into the water beneath. The
motive or impulse thus adhibited in the person of a drowning man, was
as powerful on his material compages as the force of gravitation on
mine; and he could no more help jumping into the water than I could
help falling into it."

"All perfectly true," said Squire Headlong; "and, on the same
principle, you make no distinction between the man who knocks you down
and him who picks you up."

"I make this distinction," said Mr Cranium, "that I avoid the former
as a machine containing a peculiar _cataballitive_ quality, which I
have found to be not consentaneous to my mode of pleasurable
existence; but I attach no moral merit or demerit to either of them,