"So?" queried the Bibliomaniac. "I never heard of Bobbo, though I had,
before the auction sale of my library, a choice copy of the _Tales of
Poggio_, bound in full crushed Levant morocco, with gilt edges, and one
or two other Italian _Joe Millers_ in tree calf. I cannot at this moment
recall their names."

"At what period did Bobbo live?" inquired the School-master.

"I don't exactly remember," returned the Idiot, assisting the last
potato on the table over to his plate. "I don't know exactly. It was
subsequent to B.C., I think, although I may be wrong. If it was not, you
may rest assured it was prior to B.C."

"Do you happen to know," queried the Bibliomaniac, "the exact date of
this rare first edition of which you speak?"

"No; no one knows that," returned the Idiot. "And for a very good
reason. It was printed before dates were invented."

The silence which followed this bit of information from the Idiot was
almost insulting in its intensity. It was a silence that spoke, and what
it said was that the Idiot's idiocy was colossal, and he, accepting the
stillness as a tribute, smiled sweetly.

"What do you think, Mr. Whitechoker," he said, when he thought the time
was ripe for renewing the conversation--"what do you think of the
doctrine that every day will be Sunday by-and-by?"

"I have only to say, sir," returned the Dominie, pouring a little hot