“Not at all,” argued Jolvin. “Any criticisms I have ever made of England were meant most heartily. But they were criticisms, not blasphemies. If I were indifferent to England, I should never bother even to criticize.”
“Have it your way, Jolvin,” said Stalton. “But you were always damning the leisure class. Now you’re praising them.”
“I still damn them for their faults. Why, then, should I not praise them for their virtues?”
“Sail right ahead,” invited Stalton. “You’re in good form this morning. Got me outclassed, that’s a cinch.”
Even without Jolvin the place was still a most unusual boarding house. Mauney had learned, by this time, some of its tacitly-established principles. In the first place Mrs. Manton, at thirty-five, being widowed as was understood, regarded her house as a master hobby. Great attention was bestowed upon the furniture, the rugs and the walls. She wanted her guests to be comfortable and, to that end, would put herself about unceasingly. No advertising of vacant rooms was ever done, for it was better to have an empty room without a monthly revenue, than a full room with an unknown, undesirable stranger. Certain standards had to be satisfied. Mrs. Manton’s boarders had to possess what she tersely designated as “savez.” This meant a number of things. It meant the faculty of living in harmony with other boarders, of being informally polite and not impolitely formal. It meant keeping in the background all grandiose ideas, but at the same time indulging in enough conversation to register one’s consciousness. It meant that one should not comment upon the doings of others, but at the same time that one should avoid doing anything to invite comment. It meant even this, that if one’s breakfast were not placed before him as quickly as desired, he was expected to go to the kitchen and get it; or if one’s bed was not made up, the understanding was that it be made up by oneself. And finally, of course, that after a few days’ residence as an introduction, one would notice that the landlady was to be addressed familiarly as “Gertrude.”
Mrs. Manton preferred men to women boarders. Mrs. Dixon was permitted because her husband was a good sort, with funds of information about racing horses and the track in general. Sadie Grote, a stenographer down town, was agreeable and sweet, very unselfish and therefore helpful. Women had often been under consideration. At one time Mrs. Manton conducted an experiment by letting the whole top flat to four university girls. They remained a whole term, but when the last of their baggage had left the front door in the spring, Mrs. Manton had turned to Stalton with all the impatience of a disappointed experimenter.
“Freddie,” she had vowed, “never again! If we ever have girls, they’ve got to have blood in their veins, not pasteurized milk. Isn’t it pitiful how that dreadful disease known as brain-wart seems to get them.”
There was no gainsaying it—eligibility to seventy-three Franklin Street required unusual, indescribable qualities. If Mrs. Manton had written down rules of conduct (which, of course, she never did), and hung them on the wall, they would have read much as follows:
“1.—Avoid extremes.