"No more have I," murmured the table generally.
"I wouldn't touch it with a pitchfork," said Miss Cissy Levine.
"I think it's a shame they circulate it at the libraries," said Mrs.
Montagu Samuels. "I just glanced over it at Mrs. Hugh Marston's house.
It's vile. There are actually jargon words in it. Such vulgarity!"
"Shameful!" murmured Percy Saville; "Mr. Lazarus was telling me about it. It's plain treachery and disloyalty, this putting of weapons into the hands of our enemies. Of course we have our faults, but we should be told of them privately or from the pulpit."
"That would be just as efficacious," said Sidney admiringly.
"More efficacious," said Percy Saville, unsuspiciously. "A preacher speaks with authority, but this penny-a-liner—"
"With truth?" queried Sidney.
Saville stopped, disgusted, and the hostess answered Sidney half-coaxingly.
"Oh, I am sure you can't think that. The book is so one-sided. Not a word about our generosity, our hospitality, our domesticity, the thousand-and-one good traits all the world allows us."
"Of course not; since all the world allows them, it was unnecessary," said Sidney.