“What book? Oh, yours. Well, it has kept me laughing for the last six months.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes. I never believed before that any woman could be such a complete fool, and my experience has been pretty great.”
“One fool makes many,” I commented.
“Well, perhaps so,” he went on thoughtfully. “And the more the merrier. But tell me, what have you been doing of late? I have left you here long enough to become well acquainted with the place.”
“I have done absolutely nothing except live a profitless existence.”
“Then you have done as much as most people do, but they thrive on it as a rule, and you, as I say, look ill.”
“This afternoon we visited some of your prisons.”
“Were they in good order?”
“Oh, excellent! But such a gloomy foundation has on the whole rather a dispiriting effect.”