"Indeed!" exclaimed the other. "I should have thought it a very good almanack if it told me to a certainty what sort of weather it would be." "Ay, but how did it tell me?" rejoined the elderly traveller, leaning his hand upon the gold head of his cane. "It declared we should have torrents of rain. Now, sir, the world is composed of a great mass of fools with a small portion of sensible men, who, like a little quantity of yeast in a large quantity of dough, make the dumpling not quite so bad as it might be. Of all the fools that I ever met with, however, the worst are scientific fools, for they apply themselves to tell all the other fools in the world that of which they themselves know nothing, or at all events very little, which is worse. I have examined carefully, in the course of a long life, how to deal with these gentry, and I find that if you believe the exact reverse of any information they give you, you will be right nine hundred and ninety-seven times out of a thousand. I made a regular calculation of it some years ago; and although at first sight it would seem that the chances are equal, that these men should be right or wrong, I found the result as I have stated, and have acted upon it ever since in perfect security. If they trusted to mere guess work, the chances might, perhaps, be equal, but they make such laborious endeavours to lead themselves wrong, and so studiously avoid everything that could lead them right, that the proportion is vastly against them." "If such be their course of proceeding, the result will be naturally as you say," answered the gentleman to whom he spoke; "but I should think that as the variations of the weather must proceed from natural causes constantly recurring, observation and calculation might arrive at some certainty regarding them."