and if so there will be a good opportunity for the exercise of judgment
in distributing their productions among the legitimate claimants. In the
mean time, we must not let the love-making and the song-writing interfere
with the more serious matters which these papers are expected to contain.

Number Seven's compendious and comprehensive symbolism proved suggestive,
as his whimsical notions often do. It always pleases me to take some
hint from anything he says when I can, and carry it out in a direction
not unlike that of his own remark. I reminded the company of his
enigmatical symbol.

You can divide mankind in the same way, I said. Two words, each of two
letters, will serve to distinguish two classes of human beings who
constitute the principal divisions of mankind. Can any of you tell what
those two words are?

"Give me five letters," cried Number Seven, "and I can solve your
problem! F-o-o-l-s,--those five letters will give you the first and
largest half. For the other fraction"--

Oh, but, said I, I restrict you absolutely to two letters. If you are
going to take five, you may as well take twenty or a hundred.

After a few attempts, the company gave it up. The nearest approach to
the correct answer was Number Five's guess of Oh and Ah: Oh signifying
eternal striving after an ideal, which belongs to one kind of nature; and
Ah the satisfaction of the other kind of nature, which rests at ease in
what it has attained.

Good! I said to Number Five, but not the answer I am after. The great