Let me give an
infinitesimal illustration.
One of the Boys mentioned, the other evening, in the course of a very
pleasant poem he read us, a little trick of the Commons table-boarders,
which I, nourished at the parental board, had never heard of. Young
fellows being always hungry----Allow me to stop dead-short, in order
to utter an aphorism which has been forming itself in one of the blank
interior spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the cavity of a
geode.
* * * * *
_Aphorism by the Professor._
In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it food of
different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anything at
any hour of the day or night. If old, it observes stated periods, and
you might as well attempt to regulate the time of high-water to suit a
fishing-party as to change these periods.
The crucial experiment is this. Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the
suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is eagerly
accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established.
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