But to define it briefly and quickly, as Minister used to say,
if it can be done at all, which I don't think it can, all I can say
is, as galls say to conundrums, "I can't, so I give it up. What is
it?"
Perhaps it's my own fault, for dear old Mr Hopewell used to say, "Sam,
your head ain't like any one else's. Most men's minds resembles what
appears on the water when you throw a stone in it. There is a centre,
and circles form round it, each one a little larger than the other,
until the impelling power ceases to act. Now you set off on the outer
circle, and go round and round ever so often, until you arrive to the
centre where you ought to have started from at first; I never see the
beat of you."
"It's natur," sais I, "Minister."
"Natur," sais he, "what the plague has natur to do with it?"
"Why," sais I, "can one man surround a flock of sheep?"
"Why, what nonsense," sais he; "of course he can't."
"Well, that's what this child can do," sais I. "I make a good sizeable
ring-fence, open the bars, and put them in, for if it's too small,
they turn and out agin like wink, and they will never so much as look
at it a second time. Well, when I get them there, I narrow and narrow
the circle, till it's all solid wool and mutton, and I have every
mother's son of them. It takes time, for I am all alone, and have no
one to help me; but they are thar' at last.
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