Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/245

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XIII]
WHAT TOTTLES MEANT.
207

While the thing lasted, there were funny sights to be seen! Why, I've often watched a ploughman, with two horses harnessed to the plough, doing his best to get it forwards; while the opposition-ploughman, with three donkeys harnessed at the other end, was doing his best to get it backwards! And the plough never moving an inch, either way!"

"But we never did anything like that!" I exclaimed.

"Simply because you were less logical than we were," replied Mein Herr "There is sometimes an advantage in being a donk—— Excuse me! No personal allusion intended. All this happened long ago, you know!"

"Did the Dichotomy-Principle succeed in any direction?" I enquired.

"In none," Mein Herr candidly confessed. "It had a very short trial in Commerce. The shop-keepers wouldn't take it up, after once trying the plan of having half the attendants busy in folding up and carrying away the goods which the other half were trying to spread out upon the counters. They said the Public didn't like it!"