from a telegraph post. Well, yesterday Blake was sneering at the whole affair.’
‘What is this wireless machine? Explain it to me,’ said Lady Bude.
‘How can you be so cruel?’ asked Merton.
‘Why cruel?’
‘Oh, you know very well how your sex receives explanations. You have three ways of doing it.’
‘Explain them!’
‘Well, the first way is, if a man tries to explain what “per cent” means, or the difference of “odds on,” or “odds against,” that is, if they don’t gamble, they cast their hands desperately abroad, and cry, “Oh, don’t, I never can understand!” The second way is to sit and smile, and look intelligent, and think of their dressmaker, or their children, or their young man, and then to say, “Thank you, you have made it all so clear!”’
‘And the third way?’
‘The third way is for you to make it plain to the explainer that he does not understand what he is explaining.’
‘Well, try me; how does the wireless machine work?’