Man is a bundle of habits,--boy a male young bundle of habits.

Man is a machine,--boy a male young machine.

Man is a tail-less monkey,--boy a male young tail-less monkey.

Man is a combination of gases,--boy a male young combination of gases.

Man is an appearance,--boy a male young appearance," etc., etc., and etcetera, ad infinitum! And if none of these definitions had entirely satisfied my father, I am perfectly persuaded that he would never have come to Mrs.Primmins for a new one.
But it so happened that my father was at that moment engaged in the important consideration whether the Iliad was written by one Homer, or was rather a collection of sundry ballads, done into Greek by divers hands, and finally selected, compiled, and reduced into a whole by a Committee of Taste, under that elegant old tyrant Pisistratus; and the sudden affirmation, "It is a boy," did not seem to him pertinent to the thread of the discussion.