“Do I understand you to say, Berryman, that you don't enjoy a spicy book?” asked Washer with his smile; and at this question the little fat man sniggered, blinking tempestuously, as if to say, “Nothing pleasanter, don't you know, before a hot fire in cold weather.”
Berryman paid no attention to the impertinent inquiry, continuing to dip into his volume and walk up and down.
“I've nothing to say,” he remarked, stopping before Shelton, and looking down, as if at last aware of him, “to those who talk of being justified through Art. I call a spade a spade.”
Shelton did not answer, because he could not tell whether Berryman was addressing him or society at large. And Berryman went on:
“Do we want to know about the feelings of a middle-class woman with a taste for vice? Tell me the point of it. No man who was in the habit of taking baths would choose such a subject.”
“You come to the question of-ah-subjects,” the voice of Trimmer genially buzzed he had gathered his garments tight across his back—“my dear fellow, Art, properly applied, justifies all subjects.”
“For Art,” squeaked Berryman, putting back his second volume and taking down a third, “you have Homer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Ossian; for garbage, a number of unwashed gentlemen.”
There was a laugh; Shelton glanced round at all in turn. With the exception of Crocker, who was half asleep and smiling idiotically, they wore, one and all, a look as if by no chance could they consider any subject fit to move their hearts; as if, one and all, they were so profoundly anchored on the sea of life that waves could only seem impertinent. It may have been some glimmer in this glance of Shelton's that brought Trimmer once more to the rescue with his compromising air.
“The French,” said he, “have quite a different standard from ourselves in literature, just as they have a different standard in regard to honour. All this is purely artificial.”
What he, meant, however, Shelton found it difficult to tell.