Knower's Nark.

Ever since the regrettable innovation of human speech there have been Knowers.

Noah was a Knower—but he happened to be right. It might have been a fluke, but it was more likely his corns; and the chances are that he was goaded into a regatta fixation by the brothers Hem and Sham who, boys being—well, what they have always been, scoffed, “Silly old cheese! He thinks he knows everthing.”

And Noah, discovering that even his wife suspected him of water on the brain, said: “O.K.! I'll show ‘em whether I know it's going to be a wet spring.” And so he laid the keel of the nark—more in contradiction than conviction. It just happened that he fluked a particularly damp spring and must have been pretty difficult to live with ever after.

Many Knowers have been less fortunate. Take the case of King Canute (later pronounced “cannot” as in horse-racing) who took a fly with the “books” on his ability to go over the edge without getting soaked! He had to be practically wrung out by the royal tide-waiters! He runs closer to the modern Knower than Noah.

The Knower comes within the category of scourges, plagues and pestilences. In the Excited States he is known as Wiseguy, and, in our own country, as many things which even his best friend wouldn't tell him.