was in direct spiritual communication with unseen Isaacs, or in a state
of clairvoyance, or under the influence of the odic fluid. But did we
ever yet find in human reason a question with only one side to it? Is
not truth a polygon? Have not sages arisen in our day to deny even the
principle of gravity, for which we bad been so long contentedly taking
the word of the great Sir Isaac? It is that blessed spirit of
controversy which keeps the world going; and it is that which, perhaps,
explains why Mr. Waife, when his memory was fairly put to it, could
remember, out of the history of the myriads who have occupied our planet
from the date of Adam to that in which I now write, so very few men whom
the world will agree to call wise, and out of that very few so scant a
percentage with names sufficiently known to make them more popularly
significant of pre-eminent sagacity than if they had been called--Mops.




CHAPTER VI.

The vagrant having got his dog, proceeds to hunt fortune with it,
leaving behind him a trap to catch rats.--What the trap does catch
is "just like his luck."

Sir Isaac, to designate him by his new name, improved much upon
acquaintance. He was still in the ductile season of youth, and took
to learning as an amusement to himself. His last master, a stupid sot,
had not gained his affections; and perhaps even the old soldier, though
gratefully remembered and mourned, had not stolen into his innermost
heart, as Waife and Sophy gently contrived to do. In short, in a very
few days he became perfectly accustomed and extremely attached to them.