2.  “To what branch of philosophy do you allude, sir?”

“To the only branch there is.”

“But you are aware that philosophy is divided into different kinds; as, natural, moral, and intellectual.”

“Nonsense! philosophy is philosophy, and means the study of the reasons and causes of the things which we see, whether it be applied to a crazy man’s dreams, or the roasting of potatoes.  Have you attended to it?”

“Yes, to a considerable extent, sir.”

3.  “I will put a question or two, then, if you please.  What is the reason of the fact, for it is a fact, that the damp breath of a person blown on a good knife and on a bad one, will soonest disappear from the well-tempered blade?”

“It may be owing to the difference in the polish of the two blades, perhaps.” replied Locke.

4.  “Ah! that is an answer that don’t go deeper than the surface,” rejoined Bunker, humorously.  “As good a thinker as you evidently are, you have not thought on this subject, I suspect.  It took me a week, in all, I presume, of hard thinking, and making experiments at a blacksmith’s shop, to discover the reason of this.  It is not the polish; for take two blades of equal polish, and the breath will disappear from one as much quicker than it does from the other, as the blade is better.  It is because the material of the blade is more compact or less porous in one case than in the other.

5.  “In the first place, I ascertained that the steel was, made more compact by being hammered and tempered, and that the better it was tempered the more compact it would become; the size of the pores being made, of course, less in the same proportion.  Well, then, I saw the reason I was in search of, at once.  For we know a wet sponge is longer in drying than a wet piece of green wood, because the pores of the first are bigger.  A seasoned or shrunk piece of wood dries quicker than a green one, for the same reason.

6.  “Or you might bore a piece of wood with large gimlet holes, and another with small ones, fill them both with water, and let them stand till the water evaporated, and the difference of time it would take to do this would make the case still more plain.  So with the blades:  the vapor lingers longest on the worst wrought and tempered one, because the pores, being larger, take in more of the wet particles, and require more time in drying.”

7.  “Your theory is at least a very ingenious one,” observed Locke, “and I am reminded by it of another of the natural phenomena, of the true explanation of which I have not been able to satisfy myself.  It is this:  what makes the earth freeze harder and deeper under a trodden path than the untrodden earth around it?  All that I have asked, say it is because the trodden earth is more compact.  But is that reason a sufficient one?”

8.  “No,” said Bunker, “but I will tell you what the reason is, for I thought that out long ago.  You know that, in the freezing months, much of the warmth we get is given out by the earth, from which, at intervals, if not constantly, to some extent, ascend the warm vapors to mingle with and moderate the cold atmosphere above.