THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

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"Please, sir, what is flocculent?"

"The precipitate is."

"Yes, sir, but what does it mean?"

"Oh! flocculent! " said my father, "flocculent! Why-" he extended

his hand and arm and twiddled his fingers for a second in the air.

"Like that," he said.

I thought the explanation sufficient, but he paused for a moment

after giving it. "As in a flock bed, you know," he added and

resumed his discourse.

My father, Iam afraid, carried a natural incompetence in practical

affairs to an exceptionally high level. He combined practical

incompetence, practical enterprise and a thoroughly sanguine

temperament, in a manner that I have never seen paralleled in any

human being. He was always trying to do new things in the briskest

manner, under the suggestion of books or papers or his own

spontaneous imagination, and as he had never been trained to do

anything whatever in his life properly, his futilities were

extensive and thorough. At one time he nearly gave up his classes