“It does very well on a _diagram_,” said the Other Professor. “I could show it you in a minute, only the chalk’s a little blunt.” “Take care!” Sylvie anxiously exclaimed, as he began, rather clumsily, to point it. “You’ll cut your finger off, if you hold the knife so!” “If oo cuts it off, will oo give it to _me_, please?” Bruno thoughtfully added. “It’s like this,” said the Other Professor, hastily drawing a long line upon the black board, and marking the letters ‘_A_,’ ‘_B_,’ at the two ends, and ‘_C_’ in the middle: “let me explain it to you. If _AB_ were to be divided into two parts at _C_——” “It would be drownded,” Bruno pronounced confidently. The Other Professor gasped. “_What_ would be drownded?” “Why the bumble-bee, of course!” said Bruno. “And the two bits would sink down in the sea!” Here the Professor interfered, as the Other Professor was evidently too much puzzled to go on with his diagram. “When I said it would _hurt_ him, I was merely referring to the action of the nerves——” The Other Professor brightened up in a moment. “The action of the nerves,” he began eagerly, “is curiously slow in some people. I had a friend, once, that, if you burnt him with a red-hot poker, it would take years and years before he felt it!” “And if you only _pinched_ him?” queried Sylvie. “Then it would take ever so much longer, of course. In fact, I doubt if the man _himself_ would ever feel it, at all. His grandchildren might.” “I wouldn’t like to be the grandchild of a pinched grandfather, would _you_, Mister Sir?” Bruno whispered. “It might come just when you wanted to be happy!” That would be awkward, I admitted, taking it quite as a matter of course that he had so suddenly caught sight of me. “But don’t you _always_ want to be happy, Bruno?” “Not _always_,” Bruno said thoughtfully. “Sometimes, when I’s _too_ happy, I wants to be a little miserable. Then I just tell Sylvie about it, oo know, and Sylvie sets me some lessons. Then it’s all right.” “I’m sorry you don’t like lessons,” I said. “You should copy Sylvie. _She’s_ always as busy as the day is long!” “Well, so am _I_!” said Bruno. “No, no!” Sylvie corrected him. “_You’re_ as busy as the day is _short_!” “Well, what’s the difference?” Bruno asked. “Mister Sir, isn’t the day as short as it’s long? I mean, isn’t it the _same_ length?” Never having considered the question in this light, I suggested that they had better ask the Professor; and they ran off in a moment to appeal to their old friend. The Professor left off polishing his spectacles to consider. “My dears,” he said after a minute, “the day is the same length as anything that is the same length as _it_.” And he resumed his neverending task of polishing. The children returned, slowly and thoughtfully, to report his answer. “_Isn’t_ he wise?” Sylvie asked in an awestruck whisper. “If _I_ was as wise as _that_, I should have a head-ache all day long. I _know_ I should!”