CHAPTER V.

THE SILLY SON.

MONG the favourite jests of allpeoples, from Iceland to Japan,from India to England, are thedroll adventures and mishaps ofthe silly son, who contrives to muddle every-thing he is set to do. In vain does his poormother try to direct him in" the way he shouldgo" she gets him a wife, as a last resource;but a fool he is still, and a fool he will alwaysbe. His blunders and disasters are chronicledin penny chap- books and in nursery rhymes,of infinite variety. Who has not heard how

:

Simple Simon went a- fishing

For to catch a whale,But all the water he had got

Was in his mother's pail?

an adventure which recalls another nurseryrhyme regarding Simon's still more celebratedprototypes: