It is really a question of an ugly girl who is no longer young, who has a paltry dowry and a repulsive mother, and who is besides equipped with a pretty bad deformity, relations which are not at all inviting to matrimony. The marriage agent knows how to present each individual fault in a manner to cause one to become reconciled to it, and then takes up the unpardonable hunch back as the one fault which can be excused in any one. Here again there is the semblance of logic which is characteristic of sophisms, and which serves to conceal the faulty thinking. It is apparent that the girl possesses nothing but faults, many of which can be overlooked, but one that cannot be passed by. The chances for the marriage become very slim. The agent acts as if he removed each individual fault by his evasions, forgetting that each leaves behind some depreciation which is added to the next one. He insists upon dealing with each factor individually, and refuses to combine them into a sum total. A similar omission forms the nucleus of another sophism which causes much laughter, though one can well question its right to be called a joke. _A. had borrowed a copper kettle from B., and upon returning it was sued by B. because it had a large hole which rendered it unserviceable. His defense was this_: “_In the first place I never borrowed any kettle from B., secondly the kettle had a hole in it when I received it from B., thirdly the kettle was in perfect condition when I returned it._” Each separate protest is good by itself, but taken together they exclude each other. A. treats individually what must be taken as a whole, just as the marriage agent when he deals with the imperfections of the bride. One can also say that A. uses “and” where only an “either—or” is possible. Another sophism greets us in the following marriage agent story. _The suitor objects because the bride has a short leg and therefore limps. The agent contradicts him. “You are wrong,” he says. “Suppose you marry a woman whose legs are sound and straight. What do you gain by it? You are not sure from day to day that she will not fall down, break a leg, and then be lame for the rest of her life. Just consider the pain, the excitement, and the doctor’s bill. But if you marry this one nothing can happen. Here you have a finished job.”_ Here the semblance of logic is very shallow, for no one will by any means admit that a “finished misfortune” is to be preferred to a mere possibility of such. The error in the stream of thought will be seen more easily in a second example.