“Thank you.”
“Hey! that’s not the way,” Bill said. “Say something ironical. Make some crack about Primo de Rivera.”
“I could ask her what kind of a jam they think they’ve gotten into in the Riff.”
“Poor,” said Bill. “Very poor. You can’t do it. That’s all. You don’t understand irony. You have no pity. Say something pitiful.”
“Robert Cohn.”
“Not so bad. That’s better. Now why is Cohn pitiful? Be ironic.”
He took a big gulp of coffee.
“Aw, hell!” I said. “It’s too early in the morning.”
“There you go. And you claim you want to be a writer, too. You’re only a newspaper man. An expatriated newspaper man. You ought to be ironical the minute you get out of bed. You ought to wake up with your mouth full of pity.”
“Go on,” I said. “Who did you get this stuff from?”