THE SAUSAGE-TEEE, 243 



" I could easily get one, because I am intimate with the 

 head gardener; but I don't think it worth the trouble to 

 convince him; I hate these upstart minds, that are so dis- 

 dainful of the beliefs of the vulgar; who aim at producing an 

 effect by giving faith to nothing; who appear to take men for 

 simpletons, amongst whom they form a brilliant and solitary 

 exception." 



" But," says our hero, " I ask nothing better than to be- 

 lieve when I am convinced by proofs." 



" Proofe ! Have I not already told you that shirts were 

 sown and reaped? Do you not know that cotton grows upon 

 a cotton-tree, and that sugar is the produce of a reed? 

 Perhaps you don't believe that." 



" I ask your pardon; yes, I do." 



" I will be bound you doubt that hemp is the seed of ropes, 

 or that snuff is the seed of the ideas which we sow in our 

 brain through the nose. Or perhaps you do not believe 

 that peaches grow upon peach-trees ; you prefer believing, no 

 doubt, that porkbutchers make peaches?" 



"No, I don't say that." 

 ' " Neither do you believe, I suppose, that rose-bushes 

 produce roses ; you think that all roses are made by 

 Mademoiselle Evdalie, do you not?" 



" Not at all. I know very well — " 



" You really know nothing at aU. Do you know that gun- 

 powder is the seed of death? Do you know that apples come 

 from trees ? But you say you will believe nothing without 

 proof, and will doubt next whether braces grow upon the 

 Indian brace-tree?" 



" Well, I certainly did not know that. What, do you say 

 that braces grow upon a tree like apples?" 



"I do not tell you that the tree is like an apple-tree; on the 

 contrary, itiaia iig-tree, which is called ^cim elastica, because 

 whilst cutting the braces which it produces, they draw Indian 

 rubber from it." 



"Ah! that's a different thing; I thought you were speak- 

 ing of braces with metal springs." 



"That's the way in which you always believe. Those metal 

 springs are artificial springs, a wretched imitation of the 

 Jicus elastica, or brace-tree of India; so with the roses of 



