"I hardly know," I answered. "I have never tried any regular method of life, and I have never been ill. I do not believe in regular methods."
"That is the ideal constitution. By the by, I had hoped to induce Patoff to come with us, but he said he would stay with the ladies."
"You will never induce him to do anything he does not want to do," I replied. "However, I dare say you know that as well as I do."
"What makes you say that?"
"I can see it,—it is plain enough. Carvel wanted him to go and shoot something after lunch, you wanted him to come for a walk, Macaulay wanted him to bury himself up-stairs and talk out the Egyptian question, I wanted to get him into the smoking-room to ask him questions about some friends of mine in the East, Miss Dabstreak had plans to waylay him with her pottery. Not a bit of it! He smiled at us all, and serenely sat by Mrs. Carvel, talking to her and Miss Hermione. He has a will of his own."
"Indeed he has," assented the professor. "He is a moderately clever fellow, with a smooth tongue and a despotic character, a much better combination than a weak will and the mind of a genius. You are right, he is not to be turned by trifles."
"I see that he must be a good diplomatist in these days."
"Diplomacy has got past the stage of being intellectual," said the professor. "There was a time when a fine intellect was thought important in an ambassador; nowadays it is enough if his excellency can hold his tongue and show his teeth. The question is, whether the low estimate of intellect in our day is due to the exigency of modern affairs, or to the exiguity of modern intelligence."
"Men are stronger in our time," I answered, "and consequently have less need to be clever. The transition from the joint government of the world by a herd of wily foxes to the domination of the universe by the mammoth ox is marked by the increase of clumsy strength and the disappearance of graceful deception."
"That is true; but the graceful deception continues to be the more interesting, if not the more agreeable. As for me, I would rather be gracefully deceived, as you call it, than pounded to jelly by the hoofs of the mammoth,—unless I could be the mammoth myself."