Читать книгу Short Circuits - Stephen Leacock - Страница 21

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I suppose that there is nothing so fascinating to the human intellect as the following out of a close chain of reasoning--the kind of thing that is called in the detective stories "an inexorable concatenation of logic." Perhaps it is the detective story that has made this kind of thing so fashionable in our generation.

Personally I must say that I like now and then to try my hand at such an exercise, and to see what conclusions I can draw in regard to the casual people whom I meet or see--a stranger observed on a train or a random passenger on a street-car. No doubt I am not alone in this. I imagine that the attempt to unravel the mystery of our fellow-men in this fashion is a favorite pastime with many of us.

I lay no claim to any particular skill in observation or reasoning power. But I may at least say that interest and industry have brought to me what might seem a rather surprising measure of success; so much so that at times I find myself "arguing out" the person whom I see with results that presently justify each separate stage of my reasoning.

*****

I had, no later than last week, a curious illustration of this. It happened that I was on a train, in a chair-car, going north from my own city for a vacation in the woods. At such-and-such a station--the name is of no consequence; if necessary, though, I could furnish it upon request--there entered into the train a party of five persons. I set myself to observe them quietly from behind my newspaper.

It was at once evident that they all knew one another. The fact that they got on the train together, that they were all talking together, and that one, the senior of the party, held the tickets for all, justified this first step of reasoning.

Of the party themselves the oldest was a man of about thirty-five to forty years, the next a lady perhaps a little younger, then a girl in her teens, and finally two little boys dressed almost alike. Here then was a second problem--what was the connection or relationship between them? I set myself to thinking it out. Under what circumstances does a man carry with him two little boys in similar suits? Why should a woman say to a man, "Have you got the children's hold-all?" Hold-what? And why were they holding it?

The explanation came upon me, as such things often do, with a sudden flash. The five persons were a family! The man was the father, the lady was his wife, and the two little boys, identical in dress, strongly alike in features, were brothers!!

Another conclusion followed almost immediately. They were starting on a summer vacation--the man, for instance, was carrying what I recognized to be a fishing-rod, the girl in her teens had under her arm a tennis racket in a case, and the porter had carried in for them a long leather bag with wooden sticks protruding over the top, which a little close reasoning showed to be golf clubs!

This neat piece of deduction carried with it quite naturally a further conclusion. This was to the effect that their vacation was to be spent on or near (or under) the water. The two little boys each had with him a toy yacht. These, I argued, would only float on water, and hence in the mountains or on a farm would be of no purpose. In addition to this, each child had on its head a sailor hat with the legend H.M.S. Resolute. If not water, the boys would hardly have been named after a ship.

The reader might ask at this point, how can I speak with such confidence of child, of children, of a girl in her teens? How could I know that they were children? I answer very simply that I could not and did not know it. I argued it only as a fair inference from their appearance.

On the basis thus laid down, I was able next to name to myself the exact destination of my unknown acquaintances. At the end of the line is a well-known summer resort, situated beside a lake. The train was to go to this point as its terminus and it was to stop nowhere else in between. Therefore the passengers were going to this station. This was but logic.

I now set myself to see what further information I could piece together in regard to the personality, etc., of the group under observation. Here I must admit that my conclusions were halting and more slowly formed. Yet bit by bit I made progress. I observed that the lady presently took out a newspaper, and holding it right side up, remained for some time with her eyes fixed upon it. I inferred from this that she could read and write.

Meantime a similar observation of her husband convinced me that he was a lawyer. He sat for some time reading, or at least observing, a volume which bore the title "Law Reports," from his pocket there protruded a newspaper or journal with the heading in capitals "CANADA LEGAL TIMES," and he carried with him a bag of the kind commonly known as a brief-case. The inference was that he was either a lawyer or a liar.

So far, then, my conclusions were that the party consisted of a well-to-do lawyer and his wife (well-to-do because they rode on the train instead of walking) going on, or proceeding on, a vacation to, or in, the water.

The next step was to try to work out their names. This I admit is a far more difficult process. Whether a name can actually be transferred from mind to mind by intense concentration of thought is an open question. Perhaps it can and perhaps it can't. At any rate, in this case I failed entirely, in spite of sitting with my mind intensely concentrated (till aroused by the conductor).

But where internal reasoning fails, observation may succeed. And so it proved. By keeping my ears open, instead of my mind, I was soon able to educe that the man's name was Henry. I argued this from the fact that his wife said, "When are we supposed to get in, Henry?" and a little later, "You sent a telegram, didn't you, Henry?"

The man's answer, "Yes," could be construed as an admission that his name was Henry.

The wife's name, I divined, or at least diagnosed, to be either Bessie or Mum. The man addressed her as Bessie, the children Mum. Later on it occurred to me that the word Mum was a short, or abbreviated, form of Mother. Very shortly afterwards, also, I was able to reason that the man's name was Henry Williams. Stamped in black letters on the end of one of his valises was the legend H. Williams. Could anything be more convincing?

*****

Indeed, just as I concluded this chain of reasoning, I realized that I knew them. . . . In fact, the man came across the car and sat down beside me.

"How are you?" he said. "Off on a vacation to the lake, I suppose? I'm just taking Bessie and the kids up there for a fortnight."

Then I realized that of course he was Henry Williams. I've known him and Bessie Williams for about sixteen years. In fact, I think that one of the little boys, I forgot which, is my godson.

*****

The trouble is that I am often so tied up in these chains of logic that I get tangled.