In the Assuming trade three separate and independent cults are transacting business.

Two of these cults are known as the Shakespearites and the Baconians, and I am the other one--the Brontosaurian.
The Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's Works; the Baconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian doesn't really know which of them did it, but is quite composedly and contentedly sure that Shakespeare _didn't_, and strongly suspects that Bacon _did_.
We all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am fairly certain that in every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers have come out ahead of the Shakespearites.

Both parties handle the same materials, but the Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and rational and persuasive results out of them than is the case with the Shakespearites.
The Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an unchanging and immutable law--which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added together, make 165.

I believe this to be an error.

No matter, you cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipher-up his materials upon any other basis.