A young lad and his mother were walking down the street one day when suddenly the boy yelled out excitedly, “Mother, Mother, Look at that bowlegged man!”
His mother immediately hushed him explaining it was not polite to make fun of bowlegged people.
The next day the same thing happened. “Look mother, there’s that bowlegged man!”
The mother grabbed the lad by the arm saying, “When we get home you’ll be punished for this outburst.”
When they got home, she gave her son a work by Shakespeare, “Go to you room and read this book. You can’t come out until you have finished it. Maybe you will learn something from this punishment.”
Two days later they are walking down the same street when the boy again spots the person he had been making fun of: “Hark! What manner of men are these, Who weareth their legs in parentheses?”