[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.]

When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is natural enough that among the six there should be more or less confusion and misapprehension.

[Our landlady turned pale;—­no doubt she thought there was a screw loose in my intellects,—­and that involved the probable loss of a boarder.  A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to Falstaff’s nine men in buckram.  Everybody looked up.  I believe the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-knife; at any rate, he slid it to one side, as it were carelessly.]

I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here, that there are at least six personalities distinctly to be recognized as taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.

Three Johns.

1.  The real John; known only to his Maker. 2.  John’s ideal John; never the real one, and often very unlike him. 3.  Thomas’s ideal John; never the real John, nor John’s John, but often very unlike either.

Three Thomas.

1.  The real Thomas. 2.  Thomas’s ideal Thomas. 3.  John’s ideal Thomas.

Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the conversation.  Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and ill-looking.  But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point of view of this ideal.  Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he is, so far as Thomas’s attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and stupid.  The same conditions apply to the three Thomases.  It follows, that, until a man can be found who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him, there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between two.  Of these, the least important, philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real person.  No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening all at the same time.

[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at table.  A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me via this unlettered Johannes.  He appropriated the three that remained in the basket, remarking that there was just one apiece for him.  I convinced him that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the mean time he had eaten the peaches.]