Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute, and astute—I was all of these. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at the university. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable.One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis.
"Raccoon," he mumbled thickly.
"Raccoon? I want a raccoon coat," he wailed.
"Why do you want a raccoon coat?"
"I should have known it," he cried, pounding his temples. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I can't get a raccoon coat."
"All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them.”
He leaped from the bed and paced the room. "I've got to have a raccoon coat," he said passionately. "I've got to!"
“Why do you want a raccoon coat Petey? They are unsanitary. They smell bad” I asked.
“I’d give up anything for a raccoon coat” he declared.
Anything?
I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. 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. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated entirely cerebral reason. 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.
"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.”
I went home for the weekend to get the raccoon coat from the trunk in our attic room.
"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 Peter reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face.
"Your girl," I said, mincing no words.
"Polly?" he asked in a horrified whisper. "You want Polly?"
"That's right."
He flung the coat from him. "Never," he said stoutly.
I shrugged. 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. Finally, he didn't turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.
"What's Polly to me, or me to Polly?"
"Try on the coat," said I.
"Is it a deal?" I asked, extending my hand.
"It's a deal," he said and shook my hand.
I had my first date with Polly the following evening. "Gee, that was a marvy movie," she said as we left the theater. And then I took her home. "Gee, I had a sensaysh time," she said as she bade me goodnight.
I went back to my room with a heavy heart. This girl's lack of information was terrifying. I gave her a course in logic. "Polly," I said to her when I picked her up on our next date, "tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk."
"Oo, terrific," she replied. "Logic."
"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. "Wow-dow!" she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
"First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter."
"By all means," she urged, batting her eyelashes 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. "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. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. "Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can't speak French. I can't speak French. Petey Bellows can't speak French. "Really?" said Polly, amazed. "Nobody?"
"Polly, it's a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. "Know any more fallacies?" she asked breathlessly. I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistant. Listen to this: Let's not take Bill on our picnic. "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. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker."
"I'll never do it again," she promised contritely. "No, Polly, I'm not mad."
"All right. Let's try Contradictory Premises."
"Yes, let's," she chirped, blinking her eyes happily.
"Of course," she replied promptly.
"But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone," I pointed out.
If there is an irresitible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. I consulted my watch. We'll have another session tomorrow night.
I deposited her at the girl's 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. The girl simply had a logic-proof head.
Seated under the oak the next evening I said, "Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam."
"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. "Yes, it's awful," I agreed, "but it's no argument. The man never answered the boss's question about his qualifications. Do you understand?"
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. Why, then, shouldn't students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an examination?"
"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. "I still think it's a good idea," said Polly.
"Nuts," I muttered. "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.
"The next fallacy is called Poisoning the Well."
"Two men are having a debate. Now, Polly, think. Think hard. "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 percent right. It's not fair. The first man has poisoned the well before anybody could drink from it. Polly, I'm proud of you."
"Polly," I said when we next sat beneath our oak, "tonight we will not discuss fallacies."
"Aw, gee," she said, disappointed.
"Hasty Generalization," said Polly brightly.
The dear child had learned her lesson perhaps too well. I paused for a moment while my massive brain chose the proper words. "Polly, I love you. Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling, hollow-eyed hulk."
“I will not because this afternoon I promised Petey Bellows that I would go steady with him.”
"Well, Polly," I said, forcing a smile, "you certainly have learned your fallacies. If I hadn't come along you would never have learned about fallacies."
"Hypothesis Contrary to Fact," she said instantly.
“Can you give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Bellows?"
"I certainly can," declared Polly. "He's got a racoon coat."
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