Such is the Hamal in his youth, and as he grows older he gets more
so. About middle life he sets hard, like plaster of Paris, his
senses get obfuscated, and a shell appears to form on the outside of
his intellect, so that access to his understanding becomes very
difficult. Sometimes his temper also grows crabbed, and noli me
tangere writes itself distinctly across the mark of his god on his
old brow. A Hamal in this phase is the most impracticable animal in
this universe. When found fault with, he never answers back, but he
enters on a vigorous conversation with himself, which is like a tune
on a musical box, for it must be allowed to go until it runs itself
out; nothing short of smashing the instrument will stop it. How well
I remember one veteran of this type, from whose colloquies with his
own soul I gathered that he had been fifty-six years in gentlemen's
service, and never served any but gentlemen until he came to me. He
computed his age, I think, at seventy-two, and asked leave to attend
the funeral of his grandfather. Sometimes, happily, the Hamal's
senility takes the direction of benevolence. Who does not know the
benign, stupid old man, with his snowy whiskers and kindly smile,
which seems to grow kindlier with every tooth he loses!

It is a practical question whether you should endure the Hamal, or
address yourself to the task of his reformation, and I am content to
make myself singular by advocating the latter for two reasons;
firstly, because he cannot be endured; secondly, because I cherish a
fantastic faith in his reformability,--at least if you take him in
his youth, before he has set. I believe we fail to cure him either
because we do not try, or because we dismiss him before we succeed.
Another great impediment to success in this enterprise is the foolish
habit of getting wrathful. An untimely explosion of wrath will
generally blow a sensitive Hamal's wits quite out of his own reach,