published as part of the collection
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
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Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating,
perspicacious, acute and astute—I was all of these. My brain was as powerful
as a dynamo, precise as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel.
And—think of it!—I only eighteen.
It is not often that one so young
has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at the
university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow,
you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable.
Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be
swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy
just because everybody else is doing it—this, to me, is the acme of
mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.
One afternoon I found Petey lying
on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately
diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a laxative.
I’ll get a doctor.”
“Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.
“Raccoon?” I said, pausing in
my flight.
“I want a raccoon coat,” he
wailed.
I perceived that his trouble was
not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?”
“I should have known it,” he
cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known they’d come back when the
Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I
can’t get a raccoon coat.”
“Can you mean,” I said
incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?”
“All the Big Men on Campus are
wearing them. Where’ve you been?”
“In the library,” I said,
naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.
He leaped from the bed and paced
the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately.
“I’ve got to!”
“Petey, why? Look at it
rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh
too much. They’re unsightly. They—”
“You don’t understand,” he
interrupted impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you want to be in
the swim?”
“No,” I said truthfully.
“Well, I do,” he declared.
“I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”
My brain, that precision
instrument, slipped into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him
narrowly.
“Anything,” he affirmed in
ringing tones.
I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It
so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had
had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home.
It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didn’t have it
exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly
Espy.
I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let
me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature.
She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let
my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely
cerebral reason.
I was a freshman in law school. In
a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of
the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers
I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious,
intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications
perfectly.
Beautiful she was. She was not yet
of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would supply the lack. She already
had the makings.
Gracious she was. By gracious I
mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a
poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were
exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the
house—a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and
a dipper of sauerkraut—without even getting her fingers moist.
Intelligent she was not. In fact,
she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she
would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to
make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.
“Petey,” I said, “are you in
love with Polly Espy?”
“I think she’s a keen kid,”
he replied, “but I don’t know if you’d call it love. Why?”
“Do you,” I asked, “have any
kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything
like that?”
“No. We see each other quite a
bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”
“Is there,” I asked, “any
other man for whom she has a particular fondness?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
I nodded with satisfaction. “In
other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that
right?”
“I guess so. What are you
getting at?”
“Nothing , nothing,” I said
innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet.
“Where are you going?” asked
Petey.
“Home for weekend.” I threw a
few things into the bag.
“Listen,” he said, clutching
my arm eagerly, “while you’re home, you couldn’t get some money from your
old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?”
“I may do better than that,” I
said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.
“Look,” I said to Petey when I
got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy,
gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.
“Holy Toledo!” said Petey
reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face.
“Holy Toledo!” he repeated fifteen or twenty times.
“Would you like it?” I asked.
“Oh yes!” he cried, clutching
the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. “What do you
want for it?”
“Your girl.” I said, mincing
no words.
“Polly?” he said in a
horrified whisper. “You want Polly?”
“That’s right.”
He flung the coat from him.
“Never,” he said stoutly.
I shrugged. “Okay. If you
don’t want to be in the swim, I guess it’s your business.”
I sat down in a chair and
pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey.
He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at
a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked
back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but
with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire
waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn’t turn away at all; he just stood
and stared with mad lust at the coat.
“It isn’t as though I was in
love with Polly,” he said thickly. “Or going steady or anything like
that.”
“That’s right,” I murmured.
“What’s Polly to me, or me to
Polly?”
“Not a thing,” said I.
“It’s just been a casual
kick—just a few laughs, that’s all.”
“Try on the coat,” said I.
He complied. The coat bunched high
over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a
mound of dead raccoons. “Fits fine,” he said happily.
I rose from my chair. “Is it a
deal?” I asked, extending my hand.
He swallowed. “It’s a deal,”
he said and shook my hand.
I had my first date with Polly the
following evening. This was in the nature of a survey; I wanted to find out just
how much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took
her first to dinner. “Gee, that was a delish dinner,” she said as we left
the restaurant. Then I took her to a movie. “Gee, that was a marvy movie,”
she said as we left the theatre. And then I took her home. “Gee, I had a
sensaysh time,” she said as she bade me good night.
I went back to my room with a
heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girl’s
lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her
with information. First she had to be taught to think. This loomed as a
project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to
Petey. But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about
the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork, and I
decided to make an effort.
I went about it, as in all things,
systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law
student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my
fingertips. “Poll’,” I said to her when I picked her up on our next date,
“tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk.”
“Oo, terrif,” she replied. One
thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.
We went to the Knoll, the campus
trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me
expectantly. “What are we going to talk about?” she asked.
“Logic.”
She thought this over for a minute
and decided she liked it. “Magnif,” she said.
“Logic,” I said, clearing my
throat, “is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must
first learn to recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up
tonight.”
“Wow-dow!” she cried, clapping
her hands delightedly.
I winced, but went bravely on.
“First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter.”
“By all means,” she urged,
batting her lashes eagerly.
“Dicto Simpliciter means an
argument based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good.
Therefore everybody should exercise.”
“I agree,” said Polly
earnestly. “I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and
everything.”
“Polly,” I said gently, “the
argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization.
For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Many people
are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualify the
generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is
good for most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter.
Do you see?”
“No,” she confessed. “But
this is marvy. Do more! Do more!”
“It will be better if you stop
tugging at my sleeve,” I told her, and when she desisted, I continued. “Next
we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can’t
speak French. Petey Bellows can’t speak French. I must therefore conclude that
nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French.”
“Really?” said Polly, amazed.
“Nobody?”
I hid my exasperation. “Polly, it’s a fallacy.
The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances to
support such a conclusion.”
“Know any more fallacies?” she
asked breathlessly. “This is more fun than dancing even.”
I fought off a wave of despair. I
was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if
not persistent. I continued. “Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let’s not
take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take him out with us, it rains.”
“I know somebody just like
that,” she exclaimed. “A girl back home—Eula Becker, her name is. It never
fails. Every single time we take her on a picnic—”
“Polly,” I said sharply,
“it’s a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn’t cause the rain. She has no
connection with the rain. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula
Becker.”
“I’ll never do it again,” she promised
contritely. “Are you mad at me?”
I sighed. “No, Polly, I’m not
mad.”
“Then tell me some more
fallacies.”
“All right. Let’s try
Contradictory Premises.”
“Yes, let’s,” she chirped,
blinking her eyes happily.
I frowned, but plunged ahead.
“Here’s an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He
make a stone so heavy that He won’t be able to lift it?”
“Of course,” she replied
promptly.
“But if He can do anything, He
can lift the stone,” I pointed out.
“Yeah,” she said thoughtfully.
“Well, then I guess He can’t make the stone.”
“But He can do anything,” I
reminded her.
She scratched her pretty, empty
head. “I’m all confused,” she admitted.
“Of course you are. Because when
the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If
there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an
immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it?”
“Tell me more of this keen
stuff,” she said eagerly.
I consulted my watch. “I think
we’d better call it a night. I’ll take you home now, and you go over all the
things you’ve learned. We’ll have another session tomorrow night.”
I deposited her at the girls’
dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a perfectly terrif evening, and
I went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat
huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment I considered waking
him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my
project was doomed to failure. The girl simply had a logic-proof head.
But then I reconsidered. I had
wasted one evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in
the extinct crater of her mind a few members still smoldered. Maybe somehow I
could fan them into flame. Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope,
but I decided to give it one more try.
Seated under the oak the next
evening I said, “Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam.”
She quivered with delight.
“Listen closely,” I said. “A
man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he
replies that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a helpless
cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their
feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is
coming.”
A tear rolled down each of
Polly’s pink cheeks. “Oh, this is awful, awful,” she sobbed.
“Yes, it’s awful,” I agreed,
“but it’s no argument. The man never answered the boss’s question about
his qualifications. Instead he appealed to the boss’s sympathy. He committed
the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?”
“Have you got a handkerchief?”
she blubbered.
I handed her a handkerchief and
tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. “Next,” I said in a
carefully controlled tone, “we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example:
Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during examinations. After
all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have briefs
to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they
are building a house. Why, then, shouldn’t students be allowed to look at
their textbooks during an examination?”
“There now,” she said
enthusiastically, “is the most marvy idea I’ve heard in years.”
“Polly,” I said testily,
“the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters aren’t taking a
test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are
altogether different, and you can’t make an analogy between them.”
“I still think it’s a good
idea,” said Polly.
“Nuts,” I muttered. Doggedly I
pressed on. “Next we’ll try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.”
“Sounds yummy,” was Polly’s
reaction.
“Listen: If Madame Curie had not
happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende,
the world today would not know about radium.”
“True, true,” said Polly,
nodding her head “Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That
Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me.”
“If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon
for a moment,” I said coldly, “I would like to point out that statement is a
fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date.
Maybe somebody else would have discovered it. Maybe any number of things would
have happened. You can’t start with a hypothesis that is not true and then
draw any supportable conclusions from it.”
“They ought to put Walter
Pidgeon in more pictures,” said Polly, “I hardly ever see him any more.”
One more chance, I decided. But
just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. “The next
fallacy is called Poisoning the Well.”
“How cute!” she gurgled.
“Two men are having a debate.
The first one gets up and says, ‘My opponent is a notorious liar. You can’t
believe a word that he is going to say.’ ... Now, Polly, think. Think hard.
What’s wrong?”
I watched her closely as she knit
her creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly a glimmer of intelligence—the first
I had seen—came into her eyes. “It’s not fair,” she said with
indignation. “It’s not a bit fair. What chance has the second man got if the
first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?”
“Right!” I cried exultantly.
“One hundred per cent right. It’s not fair. The first man has poisoned
the well before anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung his opponent
before he could even start ... Polly, I’m proud of you.”
“Pshaws,” she murmured,
blushing with pleasure.
“You see, my dear, these things
aren’t so hard. All you have to do is concentrate. Think—examine—evaluate.
Come now, let’s review everything we have learned.”
“Fire away,” she said with an
airy wave of her hand.
Heartened by the knowledge that
Polly was not altogether a cretin, I began a long, patient review of all I had
told her. Over and over and over again I cited instances, pointed out flaws,
kept hammering away without letup. It was like digging a tunnel. At first,
everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the
light, or even if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped,
and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And then the chink got
bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright.
Five grueling nights with this
took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician out of Polly; I had taught her
to think. My job was done. She was worthy of me, at last. She was a fit wife for
me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, a suitable mother for my well-heeled
children.
It must not be thought that I was
without love for this girl. Quite the contrary. Just as Pygmalion loved the
perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved mine. I decided to acquaint her with
my feelings at our very next meeting. The time had come to change our
relationship from academic to romantic.
“Polly,” I said when next we
sat beneath our oak, “tonight we will not discuss fallacies.”
“Aw, gee,” she said,
disappointed.
“My dear,” I said, favoring
her with a smile, “we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten
along splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched.”
“Hasty Generalization,” said
Polly brightly.
“I beg your pardon,” said I.
“Hasty Generalization,” she
repeated. “How can you say that we are well matched on the basis of only five
dates?”
I chuckled with amusement. The
dear child had learned her lessons well. “My dear,” I said, patting her hand
in a tolerant manner, “five dates is plenty. After all, you don’t have to
eat a whole cake to know that it’s good.”
“False Analogy,” said Polly
promptly. “I’m not a cake. I’m a girl.”
I chuckled with somewhat less
amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to
change tactics. Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct
declaration of love. I paused for a moment while my massive brain chose the
proper word. Then I began:
“Polly, I love you. You are the
whole world to me, the moon and the stars and the constellations of outer space.
Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not,
life will be meaningless. I will languish. I will refuse my meals. I will wander
the face of the earth, a shambling, hollow-eyed hulk.”
There, I thought, folding my arms,
that ought to do it.
“Ad Misericordiam,” said
Polly.
I ground my teeth. I was not
Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my monster had me by the throat. Frantically
I fought back the tide of panic surging through me; at all costs I had to keep
cool.
“Well, Polly,” I said, forcing
a smile, “you certainly have learned your fallacies.”
“You’re darn right,” she
said with a vigorous nod.
“And who taught them to you,
Polly?”
“You did.”
“That’s right. So you do owe
me something, don’t you, my dear? If I hadn’t come along you never would
have learned about fallacies.”
“Hypothesis Contrary to Fact,”
she said instantly.
I dashed perspiration from my
brow. “Polly,” I croaked, “you mustn’t take all these things so
literally. I mean this is just classroom stuff. You know that the things you
learn in school don’t have anything to do with life.”
“Dicto Simpliciter,” she said,
wagging her finger at me playfully.
That did it. I leaped to my feet,
bellowing like a bull. “Will you or will you not go steady with me?”
“I will not,” she replied.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“Because this afternoon I
promised Petey Bellows that I would go steady with him.”
I reeled back, overcome with the
infamy of it. After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand!
“The rat!” I shrieked, kicking up great chunks of turf. “You can’t go
with him, Polly. He’s a liar. He’s a cheat. He’s a rat.”
“Poisoning the Well ,” said
Polly, “and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too.”
With an immense effort of will, I
modulated my voice. “All right,” I said. “You’re a logician. Let’s
look at this thing logically. How could you choose Petey Bellows over me? Look
at me—a brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured
future. Look at Petey—a knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who’ll never know where
his next meal is coming from. Can you give me one logical reason why you should
go steady with Petey Bellows?”
“I certainly can,” declared
Polly. “He’s got a raccoon coat.”
