"Is it meant to imply independent means?"
"I dare say that idea may be dormant under it somewhere. My wife says the girls like it."
"Then your wife, Perry, is a traitor to her sex to make such confessions. Besides, they didn't in my time."
"Come, you know, you're a forlorn bachelor. What can you know about it?"
"Bachelors, Perry, are the men who know. Which gathers most knowledge from a vivisection, the attentive student or the writhing frog?"
"The operator, most of all."
"Doubtless."
"And that's the woman. Therefore, Oakapple, you're wrong and my wife's right."
"The deuce!" said the Chief Justice. "I wonder how I ever got any briefs."