He had gone nearly beside himself on the Sunday,
because of a general backwardness to indorse his definition of mind
as 'a living, thinking substance which cannot be felt, heard, or
seen' - nor, I presume, although he failed to mention it, smelt.
Now he came forward in a pause with another contribution to our
culture.
'Just by way of change,' said he, 'I'll ask you a Scripture riddle.
There's profit in them too,' he added ungrammatically.
This was the riddle-
C and P
Did agree
To cut down C;
But C and P
Could not agree
Without the leave of G;
All the people cried to see
The crueltie
Of C and P.
Harsh are the words of Mercury after the songs of Apollo! We were
a long while over the problem, shaking our heads and gloomily
wondering how a man could be such a fool; but at length he put us
out of suspense and divulged the fact that C and P stood for
Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.
I think it must have been the riddle that settled us; but the
motion and the close air likewise hurried our departure. We had
not been gone long, we heard next morning, ere two or even three
out of the five fell sick.
