"
Mr. Ribsam held his pipe suspended in one hand while he stared with open
mouth into the smiling face of his son, as though he did not quite grasp
his reasoning.
"Vot you don't laughs at?" he said, turning sharply toward his wife, who
had resumed her knitting and was dropping many a stitch because of the
mirth, which shook her as vigorously as it stirred her husband a few
minutes before.
"I laughs ven some folks dinks dey ain't shmarter don dey vosn't all te
vile, don't it?"
And stopping her knitting she threw back her head and laughed
unrestrainedly. Her husband hastily shoved the stem of his pipe between
his lips, sunk lower down in the chair, and smoked so hard that his head
soon became almost invisible in the vapor.
By-and-by he roused himself and asked Nick to begin with the first
problem and reason out the result he obtained with each one in turn.
Nick did so, and on the last but one his parent tripped him. A few
pointed questions showed the boy that he was wrong. Then the hearty
"Yaw, yaw, yaw!" of the father rang out, and looking at the solemn
visage of his wife, he asked:
"Vy you don't laughs now, eh? Yaw, yaw, yaw!"
The wife meekly answered that she did not see anything to cause mirth,
though Nick proved that he did.
Not only that, but the son became satisfied from the quickness with
which his father detected his error, and the keen reasoning he gave,
that he purposely went wrong on the first problem read to him with the
object of testing the youngster.
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