Love is a Fallacy:Summarized Version

Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute, and astute—I was all of these. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. 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. "Raccoon," he mumbled thickly.
"Raccoon?" "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. 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. "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!"
"I'd give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!"
My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. "Anything?"
"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. 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 a freshman in law school. 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.
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.
.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?"
I nodded with satisfaction. Is that right?"
"I guess so.
"Where are you going?" asked Petey.
"Home for the weekend." "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?"
"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. "Holy Toledo!" he repeated fifteen or twenty times.
"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. "Okay. If you don't want the 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.
"What's Polly to me, or me to Polly?"
"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. "Fits fine," he said happily.
"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. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips. "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, terrif," 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. I "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. IListen 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 You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker."
"I'll never do it again," she promised contritely. I sighed. "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.I'll take 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. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy.
"If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment," I said coldly, "I would like to point out that the statement is a fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date. "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."
"Pshaw," she murmured, blushing with pleasure.
Think—examine—evaluate. Come now, let's review everything we have learned."
Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin, I began a long, patient review of all I had told her. I had no idea when I would reach the light, or even if I would.
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. The time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.
"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.
"Hasty Generalization," she repeated. I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well. "My dear," I said, patting her head in a tolerant manner, "five dates is plenty"False Analogy," said Polly promptly. I'm a girl."
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."
"Ad Misericordiam," said Polly.
"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?"
If I hadn't come along you would never 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.
"That rat!" I shrieked, kicking up great chuncks of turf. "You can't go with him, Polly. He's a liar.
"Poisoning the Well," said Polly, "and stop shouting.
"All right," I said. "You're a logician. 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 knot-head, 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 racoon coat."