Gustave Courbet paintings

Gustave Courbet paintings
Guido Reni paintings
George Inness paintings
carefully. "But the joke's on you."
"Oh?"
"I knew all along that Pass and Fail aren't opposites -- didn't I tell you Passage is Failure? -- but I also knew you knew I'd try to trick you into flunking. So I told you they were the same so you'd believe I thought they were different and come to think so yourself. Why else do you think I pretended to take your advice?"
"I know why you took it," I replied, and grinned, hoping to confuse him with inversions-of-inversions long enough to work out the right ones for myself. "Whatyou don't know, when I tell youFailure is Passage, is whether I want you to believe it is because it isn't or isn't because it is."
Stoker grinned also -- not easily, it seemed to me -- and added as though carelessly: "-- or is because itis, eh? Or isn't because it isn't. . ."
I perspired, and he exploited his advantage at once. "Don't forget, boy: whichever you believe, you may believe because I tricked you into it."
Grimly I retorted: "And if you did, the joke may be on you." But it was