“Heavens alive, man! don’t you read the papers?”
Lenox smiled. “Why should I? I am not interested in the community. It might be stricken with dry-rot, elephantiasis and plica polonica for ought I care. Besides, there is nothing in them; the English papers are all advertisements and aridity, the French are frivolous and obscene. I mind neither frivolity nor obscenity; both have their uses, as flowers and cesspools have theirs; but I object to them served with my breakfast. I think if once a year a man would read a summary of the twelvemonth, he would get in ten minutes a digest of all that might be necessary to know, and what is more to the point, he would have to his credit a clear profit of two hundred hours at the very least, and two hundred hours rightly employed are sufficient for the acquirement of such a knowledge of a foreign language as will permit a man to make love in it gracefully. No, I seldom read the papers, so forgive my ignorance as to Mirette.”
“After such an explanation I shall have to. But if you care to learn by word of mouth that which you decline to read in print, Mirette is premier sujet.”
“In the ballet, you mean.”
“Yes, in the ballet, and I can’t for the life of me think of a ballet without her.”
“She must have gone to your head.”
“And to every one’s who has seen her.”
“You say she is here?”
“Yes, she’ll be at the Casino to-night; I’ll present you if you say so.”
“I might take a look at her, but I fancy I shalt be occupied elsewhere.”