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“Why?” said both the tennis boys at once.

The tutor smiled. “Is it not clear,” said he, “that there can be no sound if it is not heard!”

“No,” they both returned, “not in the least clear.”

“It’s clear enough what he’s driving at of course, “pursued the first boy. “Until the waves of sound or light or what not hit us through our senses, our brains don’t experience the sensations of sound or light or what not, and so, of course, we can’t know about them–not until they reach us.”

“Precisely,” said the tutor. He had a suave and slightly alien accent.

“Well, just tell me how that proves a thunder-storm in a desert island makes no noise.”

“If a thing is inaudible–” began the tutor,

“That’s mere juggling!” vociferated the boy,” That’s merely the same kind of toy-shop brain-trick you gave us out of Greek philosophy yesterday, They said there was no such thing as motion because at every instant of time the moving body had to be somewhere, so how could it get anywhere else? Good Lord! I can make up foolishness like that myself. For instance: A moving body can never stop. Why? Why, because at every instant of time it must be going at a certain rate, so how can it ever get slower? Pooh!” He stopped. He had been gesticulating with one hand, which he now jammed wrathfully into his pocket.

The tutor must have derived great pleasure from his own smile, for he prolonged and deepened and variously modified it while his shiny little calculating eyes travelled from one to the other of his ruddy scholars. He coughed, consulted his notes, and went through all the paces of superiority. “I can find nothing about a body’s being unable to stop,” said he, gently. “If logic makes no appeal to you, gentlemen–“

“Oh, bunch!” exclaimed the second tennis boy, in the slang of his period, which was the early eighties. “Look here. Color has no existence outside of our brain – that’s the idea?”

The tutor bowed.

“And sound hasn’t? and smell hasn’t? and taste hasn’t?”

The tutor had repeated his little bow after each.

“And that’s because they depend on our senses? Very well. But he claims solidity and shape and distance do exist independently of us. If we all died, they’d he here just the same, though the others wouldn’t. A flower would go on growing, but it would stop smelling. Very well. Now you tell me how we ascertain solidity. By the touch, don’t we? Then, if there was nobody to touch an object, what then? Seems to me touch is just as much of a sense as your nose is.” (He meant no personality, but the first boy choked a giggle as the speaker hotly followed up his thought.)” Seems to me by his reasoning that in a desert island there’d be nothing it all–smells or shapes–not even an island. Seems to me that’s what you call logic.”

The tutor directed his smile at the open window. “Berkeley–” said he.

“By Jove!” said the other boy, not heeding him, “and here’s another point: if color is entirely in my brain, why don’t that ink-bottle and this shirt look alike to me? They ought to. And why don’t a Martini cocktail and a cup of coffee taste the same to my tongue?” “Berkeley,” attempted the tutor, “demonstrates–“

“Do you mean to say,” the boy rushed on, “that there is no eternal quality in all these things which when it meets my perceptions compels me to see differences?”

The tutor surveyed his notes. “I can discover no such suggestions here as you are pleased to make” said he. “But your orriginal researches,” he continued most obsequiously, “recall our next subject,–Berkeley and the Idealists.” And he smoothed out his notes.

“Let’s see,” said the second boy, pondering; “I went to two or three lectures about that time. Berkeley–Berkeley. Didn’t he–oh, yes! he did. He went the whole hog. Nothing’s anywhere except in your ideas. You think the table’s there, but it isn’t. There isn’t any table.”