My brother ga'ed himsel sic a clink o' the eye against ane at hame; but ye ken there was nane that could tell the shape o' the thing that did it!" A little boy was watching his mother making pan-cakes and wishing they were all done; when, after various observations as to their comparative goodness with and without sugar, he exclaimed, "I wonder which are best, _elliptical_ pan-cakes or _circular_ ones!" As this was Greek to the mother she turned round with "What d'ye say ?" When the child repeated the observation.

"Bless the child!" said the astonished parent, "what odd things ye are always saying; what can you mean by liptical pancakes?
Why, you little fool, don't you know they are made of flour and eggs, and did you not see me put the milk into the large pan and stir all up together ?" "Yes," said the little fellow, "I know what they are made of, and I know what bread is made of, but that is'nt the shape; indeed, indeed, mother, they are _elliptical pan-cakes_, because they are made in an _elliptical frying-pan_." An old soldier who lodged in the house, was now called down by the mother, and he decided that the child was right, and far from being what, in her surprize and alarm, she took him to be.
On another occasion a little girl had been taken to market by her mother, where she was struck by the sight of the carcasses of six sheep recently killed, and said, "Mother, what are these ?" The reply was, "Dead sheep, dead sheep, don't bother." "They are suspended, perpendicular, and parallels," rejoined the child.

"What?
What ?" was then the question.

"Why, mother," was the child's answer, "don't you see they hang up, that's suspended; they are straight up, that's perpendicular; and they are at equal distances, that's parallel." On another occasion a child came crying to school, at having been beaten for contradicting his father, and begged of me to go to his father and explain; which I did.

The man received me kindly, and told me that he had beaten the child for insisting that the table which he pointed out was not _round_, which he repeated was against all evidence of the senses; that the child told him that if it was round, nothing would stand upon it, which so enraged him, that he thrashed him, as he deserved, and sent him off to school, adding, to be thus contradicted by a child so young, was too bad.