'What of my poem?' cried Arty Kane.
Everybody agreed that a stand must be made here. A formal pledge was demanded from Peggy. When she gave it her health was drunk with acclamation.
A lull came with the arrival of coffee. Perhaps they were exhausted. At any rate when Miles Childwick began to talk they did not stop him at once as their custom was, but let him go on for a little while. He was a thin-faced man with a rather sharp nose, prematurely bald, and bowed about the shoulders. Trix Trevalla watched him with some interest.
'If there were such a thing as being poor and unsuccessful,' he remarked with something that was almost a wink in his eye (Trix took it to deprecate interruption), 'it would probably be very unpleasant. Of course, however, it does not exist. The impression to the contrary is an instance of what I will call the Fallacy of Broad Views. We are always taking broad views of our neighbours' lives; then we call them names. Happily we very seldom need to take them of our own.' He paused, looked round the silent table, and observed gravely, 'This is very unusual.'
Only a laugh from Peggy, who would have laughed at anything, broke the stillness. He resumed:—
'You call a man poor, meaning thereby that he has little money by the year. Ladies and gentlemen, we do not feel in years, we are not hungry per annum. You call him unsuccessful because a number of years leave him much where he was in most things. It may well be a triumph!' He paused and asked, 'Shall I proceed?'
'If you have another and quite different idea,' said Arty Kane.
'Well, then, that Homogeneity of Fortune is undesirable among friends.'
'Trite and obvious,' said Manson Smith. 'It excludes the opportunity of lending fivers.'
'I shall talk no more,' said Childwick. 'If we all spoke plain English originality would become impossible.'