What is the meaning of _jocosely_? (Flippantly.) What is a court? (A place where disputes between persons are settled by a judge, or by a judge and jury.) What is a jury? (A company of men, usually six or twelve, who hear the evidence and decide on the facts.) What are cases? (The dispute or disagreement is called a _case_, when it is brought to court to be decided or settled.) What are damsels? (Young girls.) What were the names of the young damsels the young man said he saw? Why do the words "Industry" and "Sloth" begin with capital letters? (Because they are the names of girls.) Were they real girls? What does _industry_ mean? (Work.) What does _sloth_ mean? (Laziness.) Were these real girls? Then what does this mean? (The young man thinks of fondness for work and fondness for idleness as though they were girls.) When we write of qualities, or feelings, as though they were human beings, the words become proper nouns and we begin them with capital letters. Do you know what we call this process of lifting something that is lower to the level of human beings? No? We call it _personification_. Here industry and sloth are personified and made the equals of human beings. What does _entreats_ mean? What does _persuades_ mean? (That means _teases_ or _begs_.) Which is the stronger word, entreats or persuades? (_Entreats_ means _begs strongly_; _persuades_ means _begs and makes me believe what is said_. I think the latter is really the stronger word.) What does _alternately_ mean? (First one and then the other.) What does _impartial_ mean? (Fair; without any favoritism.) What does _detained_ mean? (Kept.) What does _pleadings_ mean? (Where a case is tried in court the lawyers on each side try to persuade the court or jury to decide in favor of the man [client] who has hired them. The written papers and the speeches the lawyers make are called _pleadings_.) Do you think the young man was really serious? Do you think he really tried to decide anything as he lay in bed, or was he just trying to make up an excuse for his laziness? Was there any reason why the young man should lie in bed? Did he think there was? Could you find any better reason than he gave? Do you think he was a bright young man? If you had listened to him would you have taken his excuse? Why? Was it really truthful? Did you ever lie in bed and think, "Well, I must get up; no, I'll lie a little longer. But I must get up. What's the use? But I ought to get up. Yes, I really ought to get up," etc., etc., and finally discover that you had wasted a great deal of time without really intending it? Were Industry and Sloth pleading with you then? Do you think that some people waste much time trying to decide useless questions? Does it sometimes happen that men and women waste so much time in this way that they never accomplish a great deal of anything? _Why the Sea Is Salt_ (Volume II, page 484)