Tue professor was a student of psychology and was always try: he went round the country, to find a good reason for all strange things he saw people doing.
One day he was watching a party of builders at work putting up a new house, and he noticed that while five of them were pushing their wheelbarrows, the sixth always pulled his.
The professor watched for some time, trying to find a good psychological reason for this odd behaviour. At last he went up to the man and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Tell me, my good man," he asked, "why do you pull your barrow like that when all the other men are pushing theirs?"
'The workman looked annoyed. Then he replied—"Well, if yer really wants to know, it's because I hates the sight of the blooming' thing."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.