That Boy (thinking he was still being catechised).--Because they do.

Whereupon the Landlady said, Sh! and the Young Girl laughed, and the Lady
smiled; and Dr. Ben Franklin kicked him, moderately, under the table, and
the Astronomer looked up at the ceiling to see what had happened, and the
Member of the Haouse cried, Order! Order! and the Salesman said, Shut
up, cash-boy! and the rest of the boarders kept on feeding; except the
Master, who looked very hard but half approvingly at the small intruder,
who had come about as nearly right as most professors would have done.

--You poets,--the Master said after this excitement had calmed down,
--you poets have one thing about you that is odd. You talk about
everything as if you knew more about it than the people whose business it
is to know all about it. I suppose you do a little of what we teachers
used to call "cramming" now and then?

--If you like your breakfast you must n't ask the cook too many
questions,--I answered.

--Oh, come now, don't be afraid of letting out your secrets. I have a
notion I can tell a poet that gets himself up just as I can tell a
make-believe old man on the stage by the line where the gray skullcap
joins the smooth forehead of the young fellow of seventy. You'll confess
to a rhyming dictionary anyhow, won't you?

--I would as lief use that as any other dictionary, but I don't want it.
When a word comes up fit to end a line with I can feel all the rhymes in
the language that are fit to go with it without naming them. I have
tried them all so many times, I know all the polygamous words and all the