That is a bit of bad luck for the bull. The poor bull is compelled
to waste valuable time working round carefully, so as not to upset
the basket. If the wicked child had sense (which in the book does
not happen), it would, while the bull was dodging to get past the
good child, seize the opportunity to move itself quickly. The wicked
child never looks round, but pegs along steadily; and when the bull
arrives it is sure to be in the most convenient position for
receiving moral lessons. The good child, whatever its weight,
crosses the ice in safety. The bad child may turn the scale at two
stone lighter; the ice will have none of him. "Don't you talk to me
about relative pressure to the square inch," says the indignant ice.
"You were unkind to your little baby brother the week before last:
in you go." Veronica's argument, temperately and courteously
expressed, I admit, came practically to this:
"I may have acted without sufficient knowledge to guide me. My
education has not, perhaps, on the whole, been ordered wisely.
Subjects that I feel will never be of the slightest interest or
consequence to me have been insisted upon with almost tiresome
reiteration. Matters that should be useful and helpful to me--
gunpowder, to take but one example--I have been left in ignorance
concerning. About all that I say nothing; people have done their
best according to their lights, no doubt. When, however, we come to
purity of motives, singleness of intention, then, I maintain, I am
above reproach.
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